Forevermore
by Zosie
Summary: Bella Swan proposed to Edward Cullen when they were six years old, so how come she was about to go down the aisle to Jacob Black today,twenty years later? Tragedy was just around the corner,and Jacob's death robbed his new bride of bearing his child. Can Edward make everything better? Bella is the only woman he has ever loved and he tries his best to fulfil her every desire. M. E
1. You Could Be My White Knight

Forevermore

Chapter 1

You Could Be My White Knight

BELLA

Silence at last. I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled a weak half smile. Yes, Bella, this is as good as it gets. I know it must just be last minute nerves, cold feet. Jacob Black is the man for me, it's been obvious since we were kids. Just ask my Dad Charlie or his Dad Billy. They both 'always knew it would end like this'.

I stood and turned so my back faced the mirror and looked at my reflection. Alice was right. Again.

The keyhole cut out in the back of my slim fitting white lace dress looked amazing, and yes, like she said, it gave the people watching me from behind something to look at. I wobbled a little on the dangerously high heels my best friend insisted I wear...'it's only one day, Bella, and it's the best day of your life, you need to look regal and elegant'...easy for her to say, she wears heels everyday and runs in them! I kid you not.

My dress hugs my curves and touches my body from top to bottom. The underlay is white satin, the overlay white Chantilly lace. I do look like a Princess.

My make-up, expertly applied by Rosalie Hale, looks amazing. Soft, subtle, barely there but it makes me look like I have actual color where there is none. My cheeks are softly blushed, my lips shocking in their redness, my eyes hooded in smoky blues and grays. My lashes are impossibly long and lush, and I smile despite my nerves.

I have only one worry today. That my very best friend in the entire universe won't make it. He travels, he is rarely home. He works as a war correspondent and that's why I am here marrying Jacob today. There is simply no way I can live and wait to hear if Edward is alive or dead when he enters war zones, eagerly, willingly. I can't live like that.

Edward is perfect in every single way. Looks, personality, build, style, soul.

All perfect.

He was the one I decided at age six I wanted to marry.

I was a precocious child, my Mom called me middle-aged, but I knew what I liked, and I like Edward.

Jake was something of a whiny child, always wanting all the attention, and his own way. I was forced to play with him on a daily basis as my Mom, Renee, ran the local Family Day Care, and Jake's Mom had died, so Billy was unable to work and be home at the same time for Jake, so he ended up my Mom's first paid charge.

Then Jessica's Mom started back at work, finally giving up hope there would be more babies for her after Jess, her first, and I cleverly managed to ensure she and Jake played together while I amused myself.

"Bella." whined Jake."Jess took my spade."

"Don't come any closer, I have a snake in my bucket." I warned.

Jake looked pale and burst into tears.

"Oh boohoo. Run to Renee, go cry to Mommy." I chided.

I hadn't bothered explaining it was a rubber snake, but then, he hadn't asked.

"Bella" called an irate Renee. She was watching Days of our Lives and had warned us all to play nicely in the sandbox for her 'sanity hour' break.

"Did you tell Jake you have a snake?"

"Yes ma'am." I answered proudly.

"Is it a real snake?" she asked.

"No Ma'am."

"Is it the rubber snake I told you I would put into the trashcan if you tried any more tricks with?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"Did you tell Jake it was a toy?"

"No ma'am."

"Why not, Missy?"

"I'm not a mind reader, I didn't know he wanted to know." I huffed.

"Okay, well, the snake goes in the bin, so would you like to put it there yourself, or shall I?"

I knew she hated the feel of it, which is why the trouble had started. I had snuck up behind her when she was laying on the couch, and dropped it onto her, and she had jumped up really fast and screamed.

That got me three slaps on my bottom, which never hurt anyway, after I rubbed it really hard for a while, and no dessert that night.

The next time, I was cleverer. I climbed onto an upturned bucket outside the downstairs bathroom window, and listened to my mother settle into a warm tub of water, and put a washcloth over her eyes.

I flicked the snake through the open window and ran like Hell.

Her screams echoed all over the neighborhood and I hurriedly bolted back to my Nan's house next door, and sat at the table, and grabbed the glass of milk I was meant to be drinking.

"Isabella Marie Swan. Come here right now, young lady."

Uh oh, the full name and the young lady, I was in big trouble.

Renee stood in a towelling robe that used to be white but was now aged and grubby.

Suds slid down her legs and onto the lawn.

Oh, a bubblebath. How fancy.

"I gather this is yours?' she asked.

"Yes Ma'am." I answered.

Never lie to Renee, that's one thing I knew better than to try...well, not an outright lie.

"Did you toss this in the downstairs bathroom window?"

"I was playing flips with it and it disappeared, out of my hand. I didn't know where it went."

She didn't believe me, but Nan immediately came and stood beside me.

"Now, Renee, the child didn't do it on purpose. Just calm down. Have a gin and tonic and go back to your bath."

Mom could only have her 'G&T' weekends, with the kids here weekdays and all.

She looked undecided, but Nan handed her the glass and she took it and headed inside.

"You might want to shut the window so no more snakes slither inside." called Nan, to my mother's retreating back.

That was my Second Warning.

One more and Snakey was binned.

I glared at Jake, who was in my mother's arms, sitting astride her hip as she pointed at the trashcan and I marched over and looked back to see if if she was still watching. Jake was blubbering loudly and she walked inside to get him a piece of candy, so I tossed my beloved snake under the house and clanged the metal bin lid down so she heard it from inside.

I marched back and crossed my arms and tapped a foot, waiting for Baby Jake to come back outside.

I would show him. Next time I would catch a real snake and put it in his bed.

I wondered how to catch snakes. Did you dig a hole and drop some bait in and wait until they crawled in? It could work.

I was digging and getting more dirt on myself than in the pile beside the hole when I heard my Mom talking in her 'special voice', the one she saved for visitors.

"As you can see, we have a spacious back yard and it's fully fenced for safety." she was saying. The lady beside her was gorgeous, like a movie star. She had two children, a boy who was taller than me and had a mop of copper hair, and a tiny dark haired girl, who looked like one of those dolls you get for a present at Christmas but your mother puts on a high shelf so you won't ruin it.

"Bella, come and meet Edward and Alice. They are going to be coming here every day while Mrs Cullen goes to work, and Edward will be in your class when school goes back."

I knew she longed for that day, when I would be safely bussed off to Forks Elementary and she only had the Good Baby Jake to mind. He was only four. Jess was in my class but she didn't like dirt or mud. Go figure.

I walked over, coming out from behind the long stems of flowers in the flower garden that hid my trap from prying adults, and stood before them, looking them over.

"Bella!" my mother hissed."How did you get so filthy? Honestly, this child of mine, she is the same challenge as a dozen toddlers." my embarrassed mother gabbed.

"I like to see children have fun. Now don't be thinking I will expect my two spotless clean at the end of the day. I will not object at all if they come home looking like Bella. You know how to have a good time, don't you dear?" she asked kindly.

I nodded.

She was okay.

Now, her kids.

Boy, hmm, tall, he can reach stuff I can't, he may be useful. Depends if he is a cry baby and runs to tattle to Renee.

Girl...I envied her size and prettiness, and her frock. It was white. I have never had a white dress. Renee says she would never even bother. I tend to be dressed in denim dungarees and tshirts. Renee says I am 'that kind of child.'

Whatever.

The mother went inside to sign the papers and the boy and girl approached and stood before me.

"Are you a tattle-tail?" I asked Edward.

"No." he replied, narrowing his eyes.

"Good." I answered and moved on to Alice.

"Do you like dirt?" I asked her.

She shook her head.

Okay, one for the Baby Team. She can play with Jess and Jake, and Edward can play with me.

Decided.

I showed the girl the Wendy House where Jess played with her frilly dressed dolls and stuffed toys and told her to stay and play with Jess.

Then I grabbed Edward's hand and dragged him down to the hole I had dug.

"I am making a snake trap."

He squatted down and smiled.

"What kind of snake are we catching?"

Oh yeah, he said 'we' and he didn't even ask why or tell me snakes were dangerous. I liked the kid.

"One that will bite Jake and make him dumb."

"I thought he was already pretty dumb, crying to your Mom about a toy snake." he answered, seriously.

"Yeah, Jake is a baby," I informed him.

"So, we need bait." Edward said and stood up, looking around the yard.

"What do snakes eat?" I wondered.

"Mice." he answered. "have you got any mice?"

I laughed.

"The old shed has mice all the time but Mom says I am not to tell anyone that. I am only telling you because you are on my team. Pinkie promise you never rat on me to Mom?"

He pinkie promised and we ran to the old wooden garden shed and opened the door. It was dark inside, but we were not babies so we went in and hunted for a mouse. One ran across my foot and Edward made a dive for it and caught it in his hands.

"One baby mouse. Just what we need." he said, with a grin.

"Edward, Alice, Mommy is going now. Come kiss me goodbye."

Edward rolled his eyes and handed me the mouse and I put it in my pocket and held it shut.

"Bella, say goodbye to Mrs Cullen." I followed him out.

"Goodbye Mrs Cullen. Have a nice day." I said with an innocent smile.

I hoped she was a quick kisser because the mouse was panicking and trying to escape from my pocket.

Edward stood in tippy-toe and kissed her dutifully, and came back and stood in front of my pocket, hiding it from adult eyes.

Alice kissed and hugged her Mom and went back into the Wendy House, and Mom showed Mrs Cullen out.

Edward and I ran back to the trap and tried to figure out how to keep the mouse from escaping.

He found an old jam jar and we dropped it in then turned it upside down on the ground and the mouse scratched at the glass.

"There, now the snake will see it and try to eat it and it won't be able to." Edward said and we

headed for the tire swings my Dad had hung from the apple tree that grew up right beside my window.

"That's my bedroom. I bet you can't climb the tree and get inside." I challenged him.

"I bet I could." he answered. swinging up onto the lowest branch and climbing up so fast I was impressed.

He leaned over and slid my window open and disappeared inside.

I climbed up behind him and showed him my cookie stash and we lay on my bed and ate three cookies each.

"Don't spoil your appetite." Edward said in a high pitched mother tone.

"You need room for all your yummy brocolli" I added, in an exact copy of my Mom's tone.

"Brocolli is not food, not for humans, maybe for rabbits." Edward said.

I gaped at him

The kid was perfect.

Liked snakes and dirt, climbed trees, hated brocolli and thought Jake was a baby and a dumb baby at that. What more could you want in a husband?

"Want to get married?' I asked him.

"No way. Dad said be a bachelor until you turn 30, son. I am six, I have 24 years to go."

"Okay, when you turn 30, want to marry me?"

"You'd have to kiss me." he said.

I sized him up, and sniffed. He smelt good, like dirt and mice. I guess if I have to kiss him to make him marry me, I just better do it.

I leaned over and kissed his cheek.

"Not like that. Like your dad kisses your Mom. Like this."

He stood in front of me and smooched his lips against mine.

I wiped my mouth with my hand and climbed out the window.

"Come on. Last one down has to wear the dress at the wedding."

"No way." he groaned and pushed past me and his foot hit that patch of moss I really should have warned him about and he fell to the ground with a thud.

I climbed down as quickly as I could and stood over him. His eyes were shut.

Great, I think I killed my husband. And he was not a bad kisser. I would miss him.

"Are you dead?" I asked as I nudged his body with my foot.

He opened his eyes and winked and jumped up, then groaned as his arm swung by his side in this weird way.

"Um Edward, I think maybe I broke you." I admitted.

He held his swinging arm to his chest with his other arm.

Renee appeared with Baby Jake still on her hip.

"What happened? Oh My God, Edward, you have only been here an hour. Whatever will your mother say?"

"She said she liked kids to have fun. He was having fun." I informed my mother.

"I might have known. Did you dare him to climb the apple tree?"

I shrugged. "I can't remember."

"Isabella, now I have to call your father and get him to take Edward to the hospital and have his arm set. You are in such trouble, Miss."

"It wasn't her fault. She told me not to climb the tree, I just did it anyway." Edward said.

Renee looked skeptical and put Jake down and knelt in front of Edward.

"You are very chivalrous, Edward. You are a typical white knight, but this young lady causes her own distress. Don't let her get you in trouble. Does your arm hurt?" she asked.

"Yeah, a bit."

I looked in his eyes, which were shiny but he didn't cry.

Good.

I hate cry babies.

"Your eyes are cool. Green like a tree frog."I told him.

"Bella, I think you need to go sit in your room and think about what happened here, Edward could have broken his neck and been killed."

I shrugged.

It was the chance you took when you were a white knight.

Dad came home and took Edward in the cruiser to the hospital and Edward came back hours later with a white cast on his arm. A man brought him back. A doctor in a white coat. So, I didn't know Doctors came to houses, we should have just told him to come here, I always wanted to see how they put a cast on. I looked at Edward's closely, no zip, no line where they shut his arm inside. It was a mystery.

"Dr Cullen, I am so sorry. I suppose your wife won't want the children to come back any more. I am so sorry. I was attending to Jacob, and this pair.."

I zoned her out.

"No, I want Edward to come back." I cried. "He is in my team."

"I'm sure Edward would have managed to break his arm even at home, Mrs Swan, it's not his first break and it won't be his last. I will be happy to bring them back tomorrow if you are happy to have them again? He will be in school again soon, maybe we will make it through the rest of the holidays with the rest of his bones intact, hey, Edward?"

Edward nodded, then turned and winked at me.

Yeah, not likely.

Dr Cullen got their bags and things, and walked back to his car.

"He's one of those kids." he confided to Mom and I grinned.

I was one of those kids, too.

Alice left with them, and I sat in the bath and washed away all the dirt, sadly. Then I realized there was plenty more out there, and I could put new dirt on my face tomorrow.

I was in my pink pajamas and fluffy slippers I detested but knew dad got a kick out of seeing me wearing, and was curled up on the couch when he got home.

"Daddy" I said, and ran and hugged his legs, before Renee got to start her litany of my wrong doings for today. He knew the worst one, I broke Edward.

"Bells, what am I going to do with you?" he said hugging me and shaking his head.

"Kiss me, cuddle me, take me home." I answered. This had been our mantra since I was a baby.

I climbed down and watched him remove the bullets from his service revolver, which was definitely out of bounds, and hung it up high.

I stood underneath and tried to estimate how tall Edward was and if he could reach it.

Maybe when his arm isn't broke any more.

I envied him so much, I always wanted a broke arm but never managed one.

I had tried lots of things but never dropping off the top of the apple tree.

I must thank Edward for showing me how it is done.

I lay in bed and kissed my Mom and Dad goodnight , having had the lecture about daring people to do dangerous things that left their arms broken, and they turned the light out and shut my door. I was almost asleep when I remembered the snake trap!

I slid my window open and climbed onto the top branch, panicked in case the mouse had run out of air. That jam jar was not very big. How much do mice breathe in one day?

My foot hit the same patch of slimey moss and I was spinning then the blackness took over.


	2. And I Could Be Your Fairytale

Forevermore

Chapter 2

And I Could Be Your Fairytale

BELLA

I woke up in a hospital bed, and to three anxious faces, but I only cared about one of them.

"Cool, Bella. Same arm." said Edward, pointing to my left arm as it hung suspended from the ceiling, encased in a white cast.

"Oh no." I cried.

"What's wrong, dear, are you in pain?" asked my mother.

"No, but I wanted a broke arm to see how they put the cast on, now I slept through it?"

Dr Cullen laughed.

"Your cast is in two pieces, Your break is worse than Edward's and we have to wait for the swelling to go down, then you get a new cast and I promise you can see it go on."  
"Cool." I high fived Edward with our right hands and he grinned at me.

"You have to stay in hospital for two days." he informed me solemnly.

"It's for her own good, Edward." said Dr Cullen.

"Like broccoli." he whispered and we both pretended to gag.

"Enough. Behave or you will have to leave, Edward." said his father.

"I had better be out by Halloween, I am going Trick or Treating." I warned everyone.

"What are you going dressed as?" asked Edward.

"Definitely not as an angel, now." said my Mom.

"Yes!" I said, punching the air. "I never wanted to be a stupid angel. anyway."

"Well, you wanted to wear a white dress but we could never slide those tight little sleeves over a cast. I will have to think of something else." said my Mom.

"What are you going as, Edward?" I asked.

He should be a pirate.

"My Mom wants me to go as Jack, like in Jack and Jill, so Alice can be Jill."

"That sucks." I said.

"Bella." my Mom warned.

"Well, it does. Anyway, if you go as Jack you get to fall down and break your head, that could be fun."

"I think we will think of something else for Edward, definitely." said Dr Cullen.

"Thanks." whispered Edward.

"Well, sweetie, I have to get home, Jake will be arriving soon, and Jess and Alice. You be good and I will come and see you tonight."

"Bye Mom," I quickly said. It would be more fun without her.

"Come along, Edward." She held out her hand and looked towards the door.

"Nooo, let him stay." I pleaded.

"Yes, Dad, let me stay. I can look after Bella." said Edward.

"I don't know, the two of you together are just trouble." said Mom, the traitor.

"It's okay, I will have the staff nurse keep an eye on them both. Bella can't get out of bed, maybe I should put Edward in traction as well." he laughed.

Edward scowled.

So I scowled.

"Not funny, Dad."

"Not funny Dr Dad." I added.

He smiled and ruffled my hair.

"Oh, Bella, you are a breath of fresh air. Truly. I always thought Edward was one of a kind, but now I can see he has a soulmate already."

"That could be very dangerous. Imagine this pair as teenagers." my Mom shuddered and we grinned.

"We are getting married when Edward is 30." I informed them.

"Really? Well, that will be an interesting wedding." said Dr Dad Cullen.

"Yes, I imagine you two will have matching broken legs for that." said Mom, waving as she left.

"Now, Edward. I am trusting you to look after Bella and keep her company. You can sit on the other bed if you want, we have a lot of empty beds at the moment so I don't think we will be needing this one. Toys and books are in the playroom, you can bring a few things in here, but be sensible and remember we have other patients and they are sick and need peace and quiet. Bella, if you need to go to the bathroom or need help or pain meds, ring this buzzer. It is not room service, only if you really need a nurse, okay."

We both promised to be good, and Edward sat on my bed as soon as he left.

"What were you doing climbing the tree at night? Weren't you scared?"

"I'm not scared of anything. I remembered the mouse, it is probably dead now, it will have breathed up all the air in the jar."

"Oh no, I hope Alice doesn't find it and cry." he said, worried. "She's only little like Jake. I worry about her." he explained.

"I don't think Alice or Jessica will go down near the dirt patch. In case they get their dresses dirty." I said, screwing up my nose at the idea of wearing dresses every day. Now and then is okay, so long as old people don't pat you on the head and say how cute or pretty you look.

"Yes, you are right. I will bury the mouse for you when they make me go to your house again. I think dad is only working until lunchtime so I bet he makes me go there so he can have some sleep before his shift tonight."

"He works all the time, does he? Charlie works a lot, too." I told him.

"It's the conomy." he explained. "When the conomy is bad, grown ups have to work more."

I had no idea what the conomy was, but it sucked.

"So, what do you want to do? There are coloring in books and pencils and stuff in the playroom, will I go get some?"

"Yeah, no pink pencils. I hate pink." I warned him. For some reason my parents bought me everything in pink. Slippers, pajamas, pencilcase. I wanted a pirate pencilcase like Mike at school had but Mom said it was a boy's and I had to have a pink one. So I colored it all over with black Neo and then it got all over my hands and stained them black too. Which was cool. Until Renee saw them and scrubbed them clean and threw the pencilcase away and bought me a new pink one and warned me not to touch Neo's again. Maybe it's the law that girl's have pink stuff, I dunno, but if so, it's a dumb law.

Edward handed me a book full of pirates to color in and I grinned at him.

"There were only two. I don't mind if you want this one. I can color in fairies. Alice always likes me to color in fairies for her, I will sneak it home and give it to her tonight."

I like my husband, he is kind to everyone.

I colored in the pirates and put brown dirt on their faces.

The nurse frowned when she came and took my temperature.

"Why are you smudging that on their faces?" she asked.

"Pirates didn't have mothers." I explained, but she should know that.

"So, why does that.."

"They didn't have to wash their faces. They didn't have mothers telling them to."

Grown ups. They don't know much.

Edward shyly showed me his pictures when I asked him to, and he had done the fairies real good. They had mauve and blue dresses and had black hair.

"I thought fairies had yellow hair." I said, screwing up my eyes, trying to recall. I never had a lot of interest in them.

"Alice wants to be a fairy and she has black hair so I always color in their hair black."

"Oh, I bet a lot of fairies do have black hair, they probably hide better than the yellow haired ones, is all." I answered.

"I will tell Alice that." he said and went back to coloring in.

The lady with the silver tray thing offered us juice so we stopped and drank and ate the oatmeal cookies she gave us.

"I quite like living in here." I said. "Pity there's no tv. We could watch hours of cartoons and nobody would know."

"There are tv's. I think you have to pay money to get one. Want me to go see?" he offered and I nodded my head. I didn't have any money but maybe they would let us seeing all the tv's most probably belong to Dr Dad Cullen seeing he owns the hospital.

Edward and his dad came back and the doctor set a tv up on the cupboard at the end of my bed, and he showed me how to use the remote.

I thanked him, and he winked at me and I felt my face go red.

"Are you okay?' asked Edward, coming closer, looking at my face, his head on the side.

I pulled the sheet over my head and waited for the hot to leave my face.

"Don't hide, you look really pretty like that. I never saw anyone do that before. Sorry."

I threw the sheet off in case I breathed all the air like the mouse. He leaned over and traced my cheeks with his fingers.

"That's cool, how did you do it?' he asked.

"I have no idea. Dad says it's just one of my many talents." I answered.

"Cool. I have talents. I can play the piano." he told me.

"Really? By yourself?" I asked, amazed. I had only seen grown ups play the piano.

"Of course by myself. How could someone help you play a piano?"

"I have seen two people play a piano together, on tv." I told him.

"When one forgets a bit, the other one plays it, then when they both remember, they play at the same time."

Edward laughed.

"That's a duet. They both play different bits and then the same bits. They can both play properly."

"I knew that." I said and changed the channel, looking for cartoons. We found some and Edward climbed up and sat beside me and we watched the tv together until I woke up and he was gone.

I waited but he didn't come back so I rang the buzzer and a nurse came.

"Where's Edward?" I asked.

"Dr Cullen finished his shift and took him home."

Oh.

I felt a bit sad but I turned the tv back on and the nurse told me to let her prop me higher because lunch was coming in.

I scooted up and my arm hurt and tears fell out of my eyes.

"Sorry,Petal." she said and fixed my arm again and pulled a tray thing on wheels up over the bed and the lady in the pink dress gave me a plate of food.

Sandwiches, juice, a banana.

I ate with my good hand and the lady picked up a piece of paper.

"Is this good or trash? Will I throw it away?"

I took it and opened it up with my good hand and looked. It was a fairy ripped out of the coloring book. Edward had colored it in, and she had brown hair with red bits, like mine.

And brown eyes. And he had drawn a cast on her arm. And he colored her dress in white.

He was a good husband. I tucked it under my pillow and ate my lunch.

It was boring with him gone but I didn't whine.

I colored in a pirate for him but the hair was wrong. Edward's hair was not a color of any of the pencils. I drew a scarf over his hair and colored the scarf in white, like my fairy dress.

Pirates can marry fairies.

Everybody knows that.

That night was a little scary but my Mom came in and slept in the bed beside mine so I was okay. The next day, after breakfast and Mom washing me all over with a facecloth, which was cold and disgusting, she put me in clean pajamas and made me pee in a bedpan. Gross, right? I decided I would hold it in if I had to go again.

Dr Dad Cullen came and said my arm was better now so I got to watch him put it in a cast after my Mom had gone, then he said he would drive me home himself.

I like him, he told me jokes all the way home and I tried to remember them to tell Edward.

Mom came out to the car and thanked Dr Cullen, who said he was off home for some shut eye and Esme would be getting the kids later, so I was excited Edward was here. I ran out the back and he was sitting by himself drawing in the dirt with a stick.

"Edward!" I yelled and he looked up and grinned and came over.

Mom warned me to keep clean, then said "In fact, I think you should stay in your bedroom until that cast is completely dry." so that was it.

I was banished upstairs so I sat in the old rocking chair near my window and looked down and Edward waved at me. My hair blew in the breeze and fluttered outside the window.

"You look like Rapunzel." he yelled up to me.

I hung my fairy picture on the wall.

Mom took pity on me and let Edward come up to my room as long as we both promised no more climbing out the window, so we played games. I pulled out my Actionmen and shared them out between us.

"I have three of these at home." he said.

"Bring them tomorrow." I told him.

He screwed up his face.

"What?" I asked.

"Emmett calls them my dollies."

"What an idiot. Who's Emmett?" I asked.

"My big brother. He goes to High School." Edward said.

"I wish I had a brother who went to High School. Is he really smart?' I asked.

"I dunno. He plays football."

"Then he isn't. My dad watches football on tv and he says "get the ball, you dumb bastard." so I think Emmett is probably dumb. So don't worry if he calls your Action men dollies, because he probably doesn't know the difference."

Edward cheered up and we staged a battle and I let him win. He likes winning.

"I like soldiers." he said.

"Are you going to be a soldier when you are grown up?' I asked.

"No, but I want to talk to soldiers and tell people about wars on tv."

I hoped there would be no wars by then. I didn't like the idea of Edward going near soldiers with guns. What if they thought he was one of the baddies they were fighting?

XxX OoO xXx oOo

Edward did grow up and talk to soldiers. He loved his job and I knew he would never give it up and be a nine to five office worker who stayed home and cut the grass on weekends and took the kids to the beach or the local pool. He wanted a rich and exciting life and I didn't.

I wanted the white picket fence and the baby in the pram and the toddler on the swingset and flowers in my garden and a dirt patch to dig snake traps and a garden shed with mice.

I wanted nice and normal, and ordinary, and there is no compromise between war correspondent and suburban husband.

We tried, we lived together after college and he went away a lot, and came home again, and for a while, I had my nine to five husband as he worked in the local network and covered the current affairs and such, but his feet itched to be out there and he always went back.

I found myself listening to every news broadcast and watching the news at night on every channel and when any casualties got mentioned where Edward was, I rang Esme and asked her if Edward was okay. I figured they would notify her if anything happened to him.

I know it only made her worry as well but I needed to know.

I rarely slept and ate very little and he always growled when he came back and told me I was lucky to have the choice whether to eat or not as many people in the countries he went to had no food and often no water , and their land was contaminated and they had to depend on the Red Cross for supplies.

Then came the day a whole truckload of reporters was ambushed and I went quietly crazy as Carlisle and Esme tried to find out if Edward was among the dead or injured. He came home with two bullets in his shoulder and I knew I didn't have it in me to be a wife of a man like him. He had an operation and his shoulder was soon almost as good as new, but the scars reminded me every day that a few inches lower and he would have died like the seven men he knew, and worked with.

I lay beside him in bed and told him I was moving out the next day and he cried and held me tight but it was no good. He would never change, and I could not live my life waiting to read his name in the list of those casualties killed in a war zone. I was glad I never gave in to his pleas to marry him, it was hard enough walking away as it was.

I moved into my own place, and Jake swooped in as soon as he heard. He had always wanted to make me see him as a contender, but I had never had eyes for anyone but Edward, so I laughed him off, and only ever went out in group situations when Edward was away, but Jake was still there waiting when we fell apart.

I warned Jake he was getting a really bad deal, dating me. I was broken and torn and I still loved and would always love, Edward the most but Jake was willing to settle for the smaller part of my heart and he put on quite a good show.

It was nice having a boyfriend who was always available, and worked on cars and stayed away from wars.

He had grown into a really nice man, and I laughed at my memories of the whiny, needy little toddler he had been. Now I would be having whiny, needy little toddlers of my own.

I looked out of the window and watched the guests start to arrive, and hoped I was doing the right thing.

Was there a right thing, even? Was I keeping Jake from a woman who could love him completely for himself and not because he was the best of the also rans?

When he proposed, I told him it was not a good idea but he insisted in no time, I would wake up and realize I did love him every bit as much as I loved Edward, and we would be happy.

I just had to allow myself to consider the possibility.

I was unsure, when Edward had started proposing, we were 21 and away at college and he was just being impulsive.

Our parents had insisted we come home for our formal birthday parties, and we were still happy and on a high from the celebrations the night before.

We had just had a fantastic day, he had found the sweetest meadow when we were teenagers and he took me there for a picnic lunch, but it ended up a naked picnic lunch, so I was glad we were far from prying eyes as we lay together and he covered my nakedness with wild flowers that abounded all over the meadow.

"Marry me, Bella."

"No." I laughed.

"Why not?"

"You are 21, not 30. You are not getting married until you turn 30, remember?"

"I could make you." he replied.

"How would you do that, Mr Cullen?" I asked.

"I could leave you here until you agreed. You would never find your way back to the car alive, all those tree roots to trip over, and not to mention the hungry bears."

I swatted at him and rolled away and he rolled me back and kissed me for the longest time.

"I really want you to be mine, and marry me."

"I am yours, I have been since we were six."

"So, why won't you marry me?"

"Edward, we want different things in life." I explained sadly.

"So? If we wanted the same things and thought the same thoughts and everything about us was the same, it would be boring. Opposites attract, I won't try and tie you down, you can do whatever you want to."

I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be tied down, I wanted a baby or two, I wanted a husband who would be in my bed every night.

"We live together anyway, I don't see why getting married would change that much for us." he argued.

"We are in college, and you are forced to stay and study and be with me all the time. When you graduate, you will be gone more often than not, and to war zones, Edward. It's not like you are travelling a state or two away, with your job. You are walking into countries that have more tanks than cars, and everyone from age six has a gun. I cannot sit at home with our baby and watch the door, and feel like I won the lottery every time you return. What about the day you don't?"

Tears ran down my cheeks and he shushed me, and wiped them away with his thumb.

"What if I promise to always come home?"

"You can't guarantee that will happen." I sobbed.

Edward pulled me onto his chest and rubbed soothing circles on my back.

"I could do something else then. I could work in the studio."

"You know you would hate it. You would resent it and end up resenting me for holding you back."

"Bella, I don't want to lose you."

"And I don't want to lose you, only the way I lose you will be a lot more permanent than any way you lose me." I sobbed.

Edward stood and reached for my clothes and dressed me quietly, kissing my forehead and touching my skin gently as he dressed me.

I knew I had killed the mood but we had to start preparing for the inevitable.

One more year at college and he would be gone, and I would have to try and make a new life for myself and move on from him.

The last day of college, he was nervous and couldn't leave his hair alone as he mauled his hands through it.

We went out with all our friends to 'celebrate' the end of our schooling, but for me, the schooling had been the good bit, had been my life.

Now it was over.

Edward watched me closely as everyone else drank and sang songs and danced and I sat frozen, knowing our time was up.

Suddenly he grabbed my hand and pulled me outside, waving to our friends as we headed for the car.

At home, he stripped me and lay me in our bed and climbed in beside me, pulling me closer.

Our love making had gotten rabid and urgent over the last few months, without words we both knew we were saying goodbye.

"Bella, give me five years. Just five years and I will become what you need. I promise I won't resent you or hold anything against you, I just need to go out there and experience what it's like, maybe I will hate it, have you considered that? Maybe it won't be what I want after all, and we will have thrown us away for nothing. I am begging you, five years. No more."

I considered his words and wondered if I could last five years, or more importantly, could he survive five years?

I had to try, neither of us wanted the alternative.

"Marry me, Bella, before I go, and I swear I will do everything in my power to always come home to you. I won't take any unnecessary chances, I don't fancy coming home in a body bag either, you know. I want to have a life with you, a whole, long, fantastic life with you and our kids and I just need to do this first."

"I guess we can try, but I can't agree to five years not knowing what it is going to be like, waiting. And we are not getting married. I am not becoming a widow in my twenties, not happening."

I hoped my words might make him see the realty of the most likely scenario.

He would step on a land mine, or die in a fiery crash or get caught between two waring factions.

So, we tried. I watched him on the news, and tried to be happy he was alive but he often had to yell above the gunfire, or duck out of the way as a bomb went off behind him. The television brought the wars home into our houses and my Edward was there, always there, right in the middle.

Then he got shot and the waiting to know if he was alive, if he was coming home...

I couldn't keep doing it.

It had to be the end of us before it became the real end of him.

"Bella, we are ready."

My father offered his arm and I smiled and hooked my own through it.

"Is he here?" I asked.

Dad shook his head.

"He tried, Bells, but he got halfway home and his boss had him redirected to Afghanistan."

I nodded through my tears and hoped everyone would assume the tears were simply wedding nerves.

I paced myself, and smiled at the tall, black haired man waiting for me, grinning his impossibly white teeth at me from the end of the aisle.


	3. You Could Come And Save Me

Forevermore

Chapter 3

You Could Come And Save Me

There were times when I started to think Jake could be right. I had simply never opened my eyes to the possibility I could love someone else, but Jake was always there, always mine, always ready to step closer or further away, whatever I needed.

And he was kind of beautiful.

"Bells, come out with me, one little date. You hate it, you never have to come out with me again."

"Oh I won't, believe me." I laughed.

Jacob arrived on time, well, ahead of time, and I laughed when I saw his car , fifteen minutes early, but he stayed inside it and watched the time on the watch on his wrist, waiting until the exact agreed minute.

Then he swung his long, athletic body out of the door of the VW Rabbit, and raced to my front door.

"Hi Jake" I grinned.

He certainly grew up nicely.

He grinned back and those white teeth nearly took my breath away.

"Where are we going?" I asked, grabbing my coat against the inevitable rain and cold.

He helped me struggle into it, and held my hand as we walked to his car.

"I thought, seeing it isn't raining for once, we could go to the beach, then out to dinner, maybe a movie?"

I nodded, sounds okay for a first date.

The sand was dry and at first we behaved like sensible twenty-somethings, but of course, it was never going to last.

Jake was explaining the difficulties of replacing a certain part of a motorbike, and how he was having trouble getting everything lined up exactly right in the old model, and I was drifting off, wondering if Edward was okay.

We had agreed to stay away from each other, a complete break.

But Alice had let slip he was leaving for Iraq tomorrow and I tried to forget and enjoy this day out, and not start panicking yet before he even got to the war.

It was not my business now, he was not mine to worry over.

I had expected him to move on and grab the next available girl, God knows there had been a line up of willing candidates ever since he hit puberty, but he had never noticed, and he had often pushed past some girl who had gathered all her courage up and approached him in High School, only to find he was not even listening to her heartfelt plea he take her to a dance or the movies. He stopped and looked at them for a minute, but his eyes always sought mine, and he would be grinning at me, and planning our next escapade from school, or tryst in the janitors closet, and the girl would stammer and wait his answer.

"So, what do you think?" Lauren asked.

"About what?" he answered, puzzled.

"The dance. Will you come with me?" she repeated.

"Bella, don't you even think about it." he called, as I held his folder over the trash bin where the trays were emptied after lunch.

"Edward!" yelled Lauren, completely frustrated.

"What?" he yelled back.

"Will you take me to the Spring dance or not?" she said, her teeth gritted.

"Why would I? Bella Swan, you will be sorry."

He pushed her aside and made a lunge to grab his precious music folder that he hadn't seen me slide out of his bag in Biology, and hide in my own.

He was composing something, and keeping it from me, and if he thought for one minute I would be okay with that, he was crazier than I was.

I put it up inside my sweater and dared him with my eyes to try and take it out.

Mrs Goff was on cafeteria duty and she was watching us, amused.

"Mr Cullen. You need to think very carefully about your next move." she warned him, and Edward scragged his fingers through his hair.

"Bella, Please."

"Why can't I look?" I asked him.

"Because it is a surprise."

"For me?" I crinkled my forehead. He had played for me many times over the years but he had never written anything for me.

"Really?". I was impressed. He would be a good husband, as I always suspected.

I pulled the folder back out and handed it to him.

"Thank you." he said, looking at Mrs Goff, and taking advantage of the fact she was now engaged in a conversation with Mr Banner.

He leaned in and kissed me quickly on the lips.

"I saw that, Mr Cullen." said Mrs Goff, and Edward blushed and I laughed.

"See, you did catch that off me." I said, and took his hand and pulled him outside, down the back of the school grounds, behind some well placed trees.

He pushed me against a tree and pinned me there.

"Now I have to punish you." he growled.

"I didn't look." I offered in my own defence, grinning madly.

I did look, but the sheet full of treble clefts or whatever he called those squiggles, meant nothing to me.

"Bella, I am not Renee, I can tell when you are lying."

"No you can't." I answered, confidently.

"When have you ever gotten away with lying to me?" he asked, his eyes narrowed, but he was still smiling.

"Plenty of times. Like when you fell asleep in the sun and I told you Jessica painted the rainbow on your face." I answered triumphantly.

We had been almost ready to get our casts off, and Edward was madly painting pictures on mine, he could draw the most amazing things even then. Nobody ever said to him "Oh that's nice, dear, what is it?" like they said to me, as I showed them an obvious purple zebra/elephant hybrid with no legs.

He had painted a rainbow, with each color blurring beautifully into the last, and it looked almost real, only better.

He had been the first to write on my cast.

Emmett tried to write on his cast last night and Edward arrived at our place today, mad keen for me to be the first to write on it.

"I only got away because I lied and screamed like you do, and told Mom Emmett was trying to rebreak my arm." he explained, handing me the Neo.

"Good move." I congratulated him.

"I don't know what to write." I said, thinking of many things but sure some of them would get my behind paddled.

"Anything will do. Emmett is going to scribble all over it tonight, as his revenge so I want you to write on it first so I have one nice thing."

I drew a red heart, and wrote unsteadily, "MY HUSBEN EDWARD" and put another red heart at the end.

"Thank you, Bella." he said, his eyes shining, as he smiled at me.

I blushed and dodged away before he saw.

"Hey, I have to write on yours." he called, so I turned back and hoped he would think my face was red from running.

He wrote slowly and carefully, in the prettiest script like he wrote his name on his schoolbooks, two words.

_Be Safe_

I read it out loud.

"What do I have to be safe from?" I asked.

"Everything." he answered, and touched my hot cheek with one hand.

"Come on, let's go sneak up on the Baby Team and scare them." I suggested.

"No, Mom will be mad if we scare Alice."

"She's inside with Renee, getting her face washed." I said, cringing at the memory of that wet facecloth that got dragged across my face a dozen times a day. "It's just Baby Jake and Jess."

Edward grinned and we pulled a white sheet from the clothesline and he helped me drape it over myself.

Then he ran to the Wendy house and opened the door.

"Help, there's a ghost after me." he cried, shaking, and hiding behind Jessica.

She stood and looked out the door and I ran, tripping on the edge of the trailing sheet.

"Bella, I am telling Renee." she huffed, hands on hips.

Edward pulled the sheet away and hid it in the mess of dolls clothes and we ran down to the snake trap and hid.

"Isabella Swan." called my Mom, and we giggled and covered our mouths so she wouldn't hear us.

She walked around the yard, Jake in his usual spot on her hip, like a baby, and she shook her head and loudly announced our punishment.

"Looks like Edward and Bella don't want a cone from the icecream van after all, only Baby Jake, and Jess and Alice will get one." she said, marching back inside.

"Oooh, I really want an ice cream." I said to Edward.

"I think it's a trick." he answered. "She just wants to yell at you for trying to scare Jessica."

I considered his words. He was usually right but then we heard the tinny strains of Greensleeves and saw Renee cross the road, with Jake on hip, and Alice's hand in her other hand, and Jess hanging on to Alice's other hand. Jess saw us and held up the money Renee had let her carry.

We ran to the fence.

"We do want ice creams, Mom." I yelled.

Renee looked over.

"I didn't think ghosts ate anything." she replied.

"I wasn't a ghost, the sheet fell off the line onto my head, didn't it, Edward?"

He paused, then nodded.

"Fibbers don't get treats." said Renee, handing Jess a cone with colored sprinkles on top.

"Grr." I exclaimed, crossing my arms across my body. Life was not fair.

"It was my idea, Mrs Swan." said Edward.

Her face softened and she came back with a single cone and handed it over the fence to Edward, before taking the Baby Team inside, no doubt she knew I would con their cones off them if she let them out with us.

"Edward gets a cone for telling the truth. Bella gets nothing for scaring the little ones, and for taking the sheet off the line, and for fibbing. Three strikes, Bella. No cone."

She turned and I sat down on the grass.

"You can have mine." said Edward, holding it out to me.

"No, you deserve it. You eat it." I said, trying to look like I didn't care. I picked a blade of grass and stuck it between my teeth.

"Bella, we can share."

"No, it's yours, you got it fair and square," I admitted.

"Well, if we don't share, I am not eating it either. I will throw it in the snake trap." he answered.

I took the dripping cone and licked some of the wet goodness into my mouth and handed it back, and he licked some as well, and we passed the cone back and forth between us until it was gone.

I glanced at the window and saw Renee watching us, and immediately assumed I was about to cop it again, but she was smiling and had a tear running down her face.

Strange woman.

I hoped she was crying over letting her only daughter starve to death.

Edward was spotless as usual, somehow he managed to eat without ever getting food all over his face, which must be because he is taller or something. I wiped my own face with my sleeve before Mom attacked with the dreaded facecloth.

We were playing happily, digging worms to try and catch a bird to keep as a pet, when we overheard Renee on the phone saying she would send us in with Charlie tomorrow after work, to the hospital for Dr Cullen to remove our casts.

Edward grabbed me.  
"Let me paint on yours before they take it off." he asked, and we ran to the craft table.

He painted a unicorn, and a dragon and then the rainbow.

I started to think I didn't want my cast broken off, it looked so pretty now.

Edward had been up late last night and his parents were having a nerversary party, which is like a birthday of your wedding, so he fell asleep in the sun as I painted flowers all over his cast.

I looked at Jess, who was watching me, and grinned.

"Do you like my rainbow?" I said, showing her my newly decorated cast.

"You can't paint as good as Edward." she snarked.

"Can so," I replied.

"Paint a rainbow that good then." she challenged.

I looked over his cast but it was covered in my flowers.

I dipped the paintbrush in red, and swept it over his forehead lightly.

Jess giggled, and Alice and Jake walked closer and looked.

Alice smiled.

"That's pretty, Bella." she said, approvingly.

Jake looked nervously at the window, no doubt expecting my Mom to come and slap my behind as was the usual daily occurrence.

I don't know why he worried, he never did anything wrong, he was a goody two shoes like Jess, and Renee never hit anyone else's kids anyway. She saved that punishment for me alone.

I added an orange stripe, then a yellow, then green , blue, purple, and covered down past Edward's eyebrows to his nose.

He slept on and I washed the brushes and tidied the table, maybe hoping to deflect some of Renee's anger when she saw Edward.

Mrs Cullen walked out the backdoor with Renee, and laughed.

"Oh my goodness, Renee, my camera is in the car. Don't wake him." She returned and posed me and my multi hued cast beside Sleeping Beauty Edward, and snapped off some shots.

Edward woke up at our laughter and rubbed his eyes, making it look like he had been punched as the purple mixed and turned everything gray.

Mom was soon to the rescue and I held up the used facecloth with the dirty mixed streaks of color and thought it would have made a nice dress. I wished I was wearing one, and could have painted it as well.

"Who painted my face?" he asked.

"Um," I looked around, Jake and Alice were standing right there but Jessica was off with her dolls pram, walking around the yard, singing to them loudly.

"Jess." I whispered in his ear.

"Oh, I hoped you had." he replied, and suddenly I was sorry for the lie.

Edward was still groggy and he waved goodbye and Renee sent me off to my bath as usual.

I sat in the water that fast was clouding with dirt and paint and other things, and I decided I would never lie to Edward again.

xox

"I knew it was you, I was just sorry you felt you had to lie to me about it." he said, kissing me softly and pulling back when I tried to deepen the kiss.

"Behave, we are at school. I don't think our parents would be slightly impressed if we get suspended."

"You kissed me in front of Goff and Banner." I reminded him.

He sighed and shook his head.

"You will be the death of me."

I hoped not. I never wanted Edward to die.

"Tell me about my surprise." I asked.

"No, you come over after school and I will play it for you." he replied.

"Is it finished?' I asked, excitedly. He had been preoccupied for the whole week, tapping his pencil and nodding his head to music he alone heard inside his head. He got like this, sometimes, and he didn't come completely back to me until he got it finished and written down.

"No, but with you beside me on the piano bench, I am sure the ending will come to me." he grinned.

I caught the bus to his place with him and Alice that afternoon and called Renee and told her where I was as soon as we got there, as agreed.

I obeyed certain rules these days, knowing the reward for compliance was freedom.

Edward took my hand, and placed the folder on his piano.

He started playing and I gaped in awe. He was so perfect at everything he did. Esme stood at the doorway and wiped her hands on a handtowel and got misty eyed as her son exposed his heart for all to hear.

I shut my eyes and let the music flow through me.

Edward leaned in and whispered in my ear.

"I am winging it now, I have no idea how it ends."

The notes had been light, and happy and cheery and I frowned as they turned sombre and darker and then he abruptly stopped as the music turned sad.

"No, that is not how it ends, I have to work on it."

He snapped his folder shut and pulled me onto his lap. He was a whole foot taller than me already. I was five foot two, he six two.

He had grown so fast this last year.

Esme left the room and Edward nuzzled my neck and kissed my chin and cheek.

I squirmed, things were starting to happen when we got this close, my body was wanting something but I had no idea what it longed for.

Edward took my lower lip into his mouth and sucked on it gently and I sucked on his top lip and then he pulled back, and closed in again with open lips and I felt his tongue push inside my mouth.

He had done this once before, it was different and exciting. I mirrored his actions and rolled my own tongue against his and he moaned quietly, and shifted me slightly on his lap. I felt his hardness through his trousers and rocked against it, without thought and he stopped kissing me and sighed, standing me up.

"We will be upstairs, in my room, Mom." he called out.

Esme looked into the room.

"Edward, door open." she reminded us.

Like it mattered, she had two staircases to climb, we always heard her coming and readjusted our clothing and opened our study books long before she arrived at his door.

He lay me across his bed and lay on top of me and attacked my lips again and I kissed him back and felt his 'friend' harden again and rub against me.

"It was better the other way." I whispered, and he flipped us and sat against his bedhead, and I straddled him and rocked against his length.

"Bellaaa" he moaned quietly in my ear and urged me faster, his hands holding my hips and grinding me against him more tightly.

I shut my eyes and saw colors and stars and felt that longing increase. My body was yearning for something, my belly tightened and I giggled in nervousness.

Some thing was happening , he suddenly lifted me off and rushed into his adjoining bathroom and I heard him grunt and sigh and say my name, then he came out, looking bashful and tousled.

He kissed me and lay beside me and reached inside my blouse and rubbed over my red bra. His thumbs excited my nipples and I felt them harden.

"I love you." he whispered and nibbled my ear.

He had been saying that for ages now. I loved him too, and I knew I was never going to stop him doing whatever he wanted to me. His hands felt good, and I gripped my thighs together and felt damp and warm.

He slid a hand down, over my pants and rubbed and I blushed at the feelings he was evoking inside me.

"Does that feel nice?" he whispered, unnecessarily.

I nodded and pushed myself harder against his hand.

"Do you want me to get you off?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"If I touch you here, inside your underwear, Emmett says it can be amazing for a girl."

I nodded and his hand left my body then slid inside my jeans, as he yanked the button open and pulled the zip down.

His fingers stroked against my bare skin and I groaned, and he covered my mouth with his as he rubbed harder and faster and I shook and craved more and then suddenly, the world shattered and I gasped and felt myself pulse and release on his hand.

"Whoa." I said, when it stopped, and I fell against him.

"That felt amazing to me, I felt you come." he said, kissing my ear.

"I felt it too, and I am sure it felt better to me than to you." I answered.

"I gave you an orgasm." he crowed quietly and things clicked into place in my head.

Oh, an orgasm.

So that was what Jess had been blathering on about, Mike Newton apparently had 'magic hands' and now I added Edward to the list as well. His fingers had felt incredible.

He pulled his hand away and started to zip my jeans but I stood and headed for his bathroom and felt a sudden need to pee.

I walked out and saw Esme sitting on the chair at Edward's desk.

"I think maybe it's time for a few ground rules for you two." she said, smiling .

"Mom, we know the facts of life, the birds and the bees." Edward answered.

Well, I had just had a lesson in them that I had known nothing about.

Renee had made it sound so mechanical and clinical, like some routine one had to perform to get a baby, not like that. If that was just the preliminaries, I was quite keen to progress to the main event.

"Okay, then promise me you two will not do anything to risk Bella getting pregnant. I know you two are almost sixteen and it is inevitable you will be getting up to things and learning about each others bodies, but I have to know you will not proceed to full sex. I need your words on it."

Edward looked at me and I bit my lower lip.

"I swear. I would never do anything to hurt her, Mom and that includes knocking her up in High School."

"Bella." she said, and I blushed madly.

"I promise, Renee. Safe sex and all that, no glove, no love."

"I hope you won't need condoms for a few years yet. You two are just kids, please, keep it tame for a while. How about refraining from needing condoms until you turn 18?"

"I promise." I said with a sigh.

"I will take responsibility to keep her under control." said Edward and I glared at him.

Esme laughed, and ruffled his hair and he grinned at her.

"Normally I would say the girl has to be in charge but I think you two both need to be aware how easily things can get out of hand and both promise to put each other first, you want to go to college and have careers, and having accidental pregnancies are a tragedy for all concerned. Bella, you can talk to me any time, woman to woman, anything you want to ask, please do. I won't 'rat you out' to Renee, but maybe you should talk to her as well?"

I nodded. Renee would probably understand, Charlie would probably cut down the apple tree and have an electric fence installed, and brick up the doors.

Definitely a conversation to keep between the females.

xOx

A seagull swooped and brought me back to the present. I have to move on, so thinking about old times is not going to help.

I ran towards the sea and kicked the frothy water at Jake and he laughed and grabbed my waist and twirled me around, my feet off the ground.

It felt so strange.

The wrong arms.

I sobered and freed myself and walked up the sand and flopped.

"Bells." he said quietly.

"Nobody else has ever touched me." I said.

"I know that. I know it will be hard and a long, slow process but it's what you want, right?"

I shook my head, and cried unashamedly.

"No, it's not what I want, but it is what I need. I can't do it, Jake. Waiting for that call. Do you know, I even find myself looking at black dresses when I shop, I am always preparing myself for the inevitable.

It's just too hard but I can't do it any more. I won't. I have to have a life where the nightly news doesn't terrify me, and every time the phone rings I expect to see my world end.

I will never forget him or even stop loving him, you need to know that. If you want to quit now, I understand. But if you want anything with me, you have to know the facts. I didn't leave Edward because I stopped loving him, I left because I love him too much."

Jake sat beside me and sifted sand between his fingers.

"Maybe you need to explore the possibility you can love more than one man. I know you have feelings for me, Bells, you just need to admit that to yourself. We have known each other forever, right? We have had some fun times, you always end up my partner when we go out with the group. I know it's because he isn't there but have you ever wondered why you refused Eric, and Mike, and Tyler when they offered to be your partner but you never refused me? I didn't go to Ryan's party for a reason, I wanted to see if I wasn't there, if you would turn to one of the others, but you sat there all night with Rosalie and Emmett, and Alice and Jasper, and refused every man who asked you to dance."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"I had Seth watching you for me. I needed to know it was me, and not just anyone."

"Jacob, I have never denied being friends with you, or letting you partner me at those outings, but I think you see more in it than I do. If this goes bad, I will lose you as my friend."

"What if I promise that will never happen? Sure, I will go off and sulk and whine like a baby but I will always need you in my life in some capacity and I won't ever leave you, Bella."

"So long as you know what you are getting into."

"Oh, I do, and it's worth the risk. Just promise not to shut out the possibility you could love me as well."

"Okay, fine." I said, tossing sand towards the waterline.

Jake grabbed my hand and pulled me up and we walked along the beach and the sun lowered in the sky and I stood and watched the sunset and tried to convince myself there was another life out there for me.

Jake tried so hard to be whatever I needed, and I found it became habit, just let him under my skin, let him have his chance.

In time, I did start to respond to his kisses, and even wonder what it would be like to share his bed, but he felt strongly that we had to wait until the wedding.

He was proud of his virginity, and he had dated other girls so the opportunities were there but it was the one rule Jake never wanted to break.

So, we stuck to kissing and schoolyard petting and never allowed ourselves to get too excited, Jake would set the boundaries, and he would pull away when he felt we were crossing his rigid lines.

So, I smiled at him as I walked down the makeshift aisle, tonight was the night. A true honeymoon between a virgin and a woman who had only ever known one man. It would be hard for us both.

It was the ultimate test, and I wished Jake had let me try before today, because it will be a pretty damned poor marriage if I can't allow him inside me.

I parroted the words and put my hand out for the ring and slid his onto his finger and watched him smile and knew he was feeling like a winner today.

I just feared the prize was not what he hoped.

I have done my best and I do love him, and maybe that will be enough for us both.

I know Jake wants a child as soon as possible, and half of me wonders if he wants one to tie me to him permanently, so even if Edward does ever come back and settle for suburbia, Jake knows I would never deprive a child of their parent.

We are announced as Jacob and Isabella Black and our guests clap and my bridesmaids Jess, Alice and Rose walk behind us, and I am pulled into hugs and kissed by a lot of lips, and then it's Esme and I cry on her shoulder for what might have been. I wanted her as my Mom, I wanted Dr Dad Cullen to deliver his own grandbabies from my body.

She rocks me gently and I can't stop the tears. Jake has been pulled away by the Quileutes and is getting hugged and slapped and high fived, so he doesn't notice I stopped here, halfway down my side of the congregation. Carlisle pried me off his wife and whispers in my ear as he holds me tight.

"You made a choice, sweetheart, don't forget why you chose Jake. Edward is your past, let him go."

I pulled back and nodded and moved on to some other people, I don't know who they were, they knew me, that was enough.

Camera's flashed, it was like an out of body experience. I was there physically but my mind had shut down and I mechanically uttered Thank You's and Yes and No, and hoped they were appropriate.

I ate something at the reception, I danced with many men, and I knew it was done now, no turning back.

When we left, Jake pulled me close and kissed me hard and long and I let myself respond in kind, and he carried me over the threshold of the hotel room. I had not been able to get more than a week off work, so we were having a mini honeymoon right here in Forks, then taking a month long vacation in three months time when school broke up and my class of six year old's enjoyed their break and moved on the the next class afterwards. I would miss them but I would have a whole new batch, including Emmett and Rose's daughter Lilian, and she would keep me on my toes. She reminded me of me, and I know I was a handful of trouble.

It's probably a blessing in disguise that Edward and I will never make a child together, imagine the grit and stubbornness.

I nervously undressed and took a shower, staying in much longer than necessary, and I dried myself and gave my body a strict talking to. It belonged to Jake now and it had better respond to him with all the same enthusiasm it had for Edward.

I pulled the honeymoon nightdress, what there was of it, over my head. Rose and Alice chose this, they argued for an hour over which one to buy. Alice loved a royal blue one but I would never ear blue for anyone again, and Rose wanted black with red ribbons, which Alice proclaimed was tarty and cheap. I felt a little tarty and cheap to be honest. Maybe she should have bought that one.

This one was pink, the color Jake loved me in the most, the color I detested but I wore it for my father when I was a child and I could wear it for my husband now.

My mind almost choked over the word.

Jake was my husband but Edward would always be my 'husben.'

Jake whistled and I blushed.

The housephone rang and he grabbed it and indicated I was to twirl for him while he talked.

I did, without tripping what is more, and watched his face as he frowned.

"I will be right down."

"I left the lights on in the car. I don't remember locking it, either. You distracted me." he said, pulling me in close.

"I will be right back. I shall expect you in bed, and this enticing piece on the floor."

He kissed me and almost ran for the door, anxious to get back.

I took the sliver of fabric off, and opened the bed and arranged myself as best I could. I didn't feel sexy, I felt cold and vulnerable.

I waited, and looked about the room.

Fluffy bathrobes hung behind the door.

I heard a siren and rolled over, frowning as it got nearer. Today was a day of celebration and moving on, I didn't want anything to mar it. Maybe someone ran a red light.

I waited and switched on the tv. Edward's face, his velvety voice, told us about an incident that left twenty three dead and many wounded.

He wore a gray steel hat and dodged as gunfire sounded around him. I wanted to turn it off but couldn't.

He looked pale and drawn and none of his usual enthusiasm showed.

"Thank you, Edward.' said the man safely sitting in the studio.

"Can I just say, all the best to my Bella as she and Jake get married today, sorry I couldn't be there, but know I was there in spirit." he said and looked into the camera. "Be safe, be happy." he mouthed and I touched the face on the screen.

"I will." I promised. "You be safe."

His image was gone.

The anchorman babbled on about share prices and I shut the tv off, and walked towards the window. Something was going on below in the parking lot. There were two police cruisers and for a minute I wondered if Charlie was one of the officers standing around a black car. But he had today off.

A knock sounded at my door and I pulled the white robe nearest me on.  
"Charlie? I was just thinking it might be you down there but you..."

I stopped.

Charlie would never drop in on me on my honeymoon night. He was my father and he loved me but this was not normal, fathers do not come up to the Honeymoon suite.

They probably avoid them like the plague.

I sat and smiled at him, because he was just being over protective. He didn't want his child deflowered, though he was quite a few years too late to prevent that. I was 26 years old.

"Bella." he said.

I quietened my thoughts.

No, this was not happening, not today. I married Jake to prevent this scenario.

"He wouldn't have felt anything, he was shot at close range."

"No, I just saw him on tv, he was fine. He said he was here in spirit. I told him to be safe." I babbled.

"Bella, it's Jake, not Edward. Someone shot your husband dead in the carpark, and tried to steal his car."

"No."

I never ever imagined Jake getting shot. He wasn't in a war zone. He was in Forks where the biggest threat was dying of boredom.

I shook my head and hated that relief had even entered my mind.

Jake was dead.

I wasn't relieved he was dead, just somehow relief Edward wasn't had spilled through.

Not Jake.

He was the safe one.

I chose right, everybody said so.

Renee had been astounded that I was leaving Edward and choosing Jake but she accepted it in the end and even she said I was smart to take the safe choice.

I walked to the window.

"Is he okay?" I asked.

"Bella, he died instantly. We will take good care of him." Charlie promised.

I looked down at the ambulance, standing there silently. No one was hurrying, it was like they had all the time in the world.

"Maybe you should get dressed." he suggested.

I looked around, and picked up the scrap of nightie.

"I only have this, and my wedding dress." I told him."My bags are in the car still."

Charlie spoke to the officer beside him, who I hadn't even noticed.

He left and came back with a small, black overnight bag.

It was Jake's not mine.

I opened it and took his Tshirt and trackpants out and walked to bathroom. I put the bra and panties Alice chose on, and pulled on Jake's clothes, and wound the legs up a dozen rolls.

Charlie put me in the back of the cruiser and I avoided looking at the ambulance, and the car.

I saw blood on the ground and gasped, but the car had a tarp thrown over it.

Renee was home and she pulled me in the front door. Her apricot Mother Of The Bride dress looked nice, and I didn't want to crumple it.

I was shocked to see Carlisle there.

"Bella" he said and hugged me.

"It's okay, Edward is fine and I chose the safe option. Jake will take care of me." I told him.

I watched in fascination as the needle entered my arm and my head swam.

"Edward is coming, he is on his way." he said as the darkness overtook me.

"Edward will save me." I answered and slumped in Edward's father's arms.


	4. But That Is Not The End

Forevermore

Chapter 4

But That Is Not The End

I woke in a daze and slept again and occasionally even ate a little, and drank when they told me to, and tried to turn off my brain. Then I woke inside a pair of arms I knew so well, and I opened my eyes and cried, as much because he was here as because Jake was gone.

"Bella, baby, I'm so sorry." he said, rolling me in tighter.

"Edward." I breathed.

He just held me and let my tears soak through his shirt. The day changed to night but he refused to leave, and Renee brought him food as well, and we ate together and and slept in each other's arms.

Nobody else had been able to comfort me and I should not have even thought they would. The third day he started talking, and I lay and listened to his voice and smiled a little now and then.

"Do you remember the time we painted Charlie's shed?" he said.

Charlie worked long hours and when he was home, he liked watching sport on tv or fishing with Billy Black, so he rarely got anything done around the house.

Renee complained constantly, and once she caught Edward and I mousehunting in the garden shed, seeing as how we still hadn't caught a snake, and she did her block when Dad got home.

"That shed goes, unless you clean it out and paint it, and make it respectable." she bellowed.

Charlie looked defeated as he carried piles of old magazines, containing naked ladies and mouse nests, to the bed of his old blue truck, and he occasionally found a magazine he wanted to keep and tucked them in the cab.

Finally the shed was empty and Renee swept it out and shoo'ed us away. Charlie had a shift, so he got dressed into his uniform and told Mom he would be taking the load of rubbish to the dump tomorrow.

Jess was playing with Jake and Alice, making dresses out of crepe paper, so Edward and I went out the front and sat in the cab of Dad's truck.

We had rarely ever been in it, it was for fishing and rubbish dumping, and he took away grass cuttings and tree branches but we used the car for family outings.

Edward sat in the driver's seat and pretended to drive and I grabbed the few magazines Charlie had stashed, and opened one.

"Gross, these ladies have no clothes on!" I exclaimed.

Edward stopped driving and took it from me.

He looked at me and we both started giggling.

"That's what you will look like when you grow up." he informed me.

I screwed up my nose.

"I don't think so. How would you find a dress big enough to cover them?" I said, pointing at her greatly enhanced boobs.

"That's probably why she is naked." said Edward. He turned the page and a lady was on her hands and knees with her bottom in the air. He hurriedly shut it.

"Emmett has stuff like this, under his mattress." he told me.

"Why?" I asked.

"I dunno, he said I will understand when I get older."

"Grown ups are definitely weird." I said, flipping through another batch of naked ladies.

"How come these are all girls? Don't boys take their clothes off for photos?" I asked.

"Who would want to look at a naked man?" Edward asked.

I thought maybe it would be interesting.

I knew boys had things in their pants that girls didn't, I had seen Jakey run around in the warm weather naked and Renee let him splash in the little inflatable pool starkers.

I just wondered if all of them got bigger when they grew up or if their wieners stayed tiny.

I guess I could ask Edward but Renee said I was a rude, naughty little girl when I asked her, so I didn't.

I looked through the last magazine, and Edward peered over too.

"All the ladies have blond hair in this one." I commented.

"Do you think anyone would know if I took that home for Emmett?" he asked.

"Why would you do that?" I asked.

"He likes blonde's. He says blonde's have more fun."

"More fun than who?"

"I dunno. Girls that aren't blond, I guess."

"I have more fun than blonde's. Lauren's blond and she never has any fun." I informed him.

"Anyway, I meant, why would you give this to Emmett? I thought he was always mean to you?"

"He isn't always. He has loads of cool stuff in his closet, maybe he would swap something for this. He has a whole big box of little plastic soldiers that I really want."

"Well, I wouldn't swap a whole big box of soldiers for one magazine of ladies with no clothes on. Maybe if they had nice dresses on, or something."

"Naw, Emmett likes them with no clothes. I saw Rosalie with no clothes on once."

"You did?" I asked, my eyes wide."Why didn't she have clothes on?"

"I don't know, I think she was playing a game with Emmett. She was in his room and I didn't know, and I went in looking for Emmett cause Mom wanted him, and she was lying on his bed. He was taking photos of her."

"With no clothes on?" I checked again.

"That's right." Edward confirmed.

"Well, if I were taking her photo, I would want her to wear that blue parka she has with Astro Boy on it, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah, that's cool."

Edward snuck the magazine into his backpack inside and we went to see what Mom was doing. The Baby Team were gluing pictures into scrap books and the shed had been hosed out and was starting to make me think of the possibilities.

"What is going to be in the shed now?" I asked.

"Nothing. I would like your father to take it down but he won't."

"Can Edward and I have it as our Team Headquarters, please?" I begged.

"Why can't you share the Wendy house?"

"Because we are not babies, we need a place for just us."

"I suppose that would be all right. One rule. Nothing alive is allowed in there, other than you and Edward. Right? No worms, frogs, snakes, dogs, cattle, sheep, or elephants."

Edward and I giggled at her.

"With you two, I know one day I will open the door and find a mountain lion or a grizzly bear and you will say 'I didn't know we couldn't have that, you never said.' So, the rule is, if it breathes, it's not allowed. Okay?"

"Okay!" I agreed and Edward nodded his head.

We could still have dead stuff, like the toad we found on the road. It wasn't squished too badly, it's guts hadn't come out.

Renee helped Jakey stick in a picture of a dog from a magazine, and we cut out some other animal pictures for Alice. She was not very good with scissors.

Renee helped us carry an old coffee table into our Headquarters and Nan gave us two small chairs she bought when I was little and she had "expectations" of another grandchild.

Mom said I was enough of a handful to put her off every going down that path again. I wondered if she meant the old path that went into the forest. For ages I thought there must be babies in there and you went and chose one and took it home but when I said that to Jess, she told me her Mom bought her a book about where babies came from and she even snuck it here and let me read it.

I think it's a fairy story, all that stuff about special cuddles only married people do. If that was true, then how come Mom's sister had a baby when she was at High School? And she "gave it up", and now we never see her because she blames Nan for making her do that.

I wish she hadn't 'gave it up' because then I would have a cousin to play with. But I have Edward now so it's fine.

Mom took Jakey and Alice inside for their naps and Edward and I sat in our shed and wondered what to start bringing in. Definitely his big box of soldiers if Emmett swaps.

My Action men! And my stash of GI Joe's. I went and dug them out of my toy cupboard and Edward helped me carry them downstairs.

"None of your good dolls, nothing that might get ruined outside." Mom warned. Like I play with dolls. The only interesting one I have is the one high up on the shelf. I have never been allowed to touch it, Mom says it's breakable and I will be glad when I am an adult that she kept it safe for me. I don't think adults play with dolls so I am not sure why I will be glad she stole it off me.

Once my action figures were stashed in the shed, we tried to think of something else to do, and suddenly I remembered Dad had to paint the shed but we could do that for him! He hates chores, this will get us probably all the ice cream cones we can eat!

Edward and I went into the garage and found some tins of paint and we decided to stick with rainbow. I found a big tin of red, then a small tin of yellow, then a tin of blue, that hadn't been opened, and that was all, but Edward told me you can mix colors together to make new colors and he showed me how to make green and purple, and even orange so we painted rainbow stripes around the shed walls and across the door. Mom was right, it did look way better painted.

Then we couldn't find the lid to the blue paint so we decided to paint dad's truck because it was the same color and it had rust and stuff, so off we went, through the garage, and Edward did the doors and I did the wheels because they should match. We could hear the music to Days Of Our Lives starting so we knew we had an hour.

"What's Days Of Our Lives anyway?" asked Edward.

I was surprised he didn't know. Nan and Mom always watch it.

"Oh, it's a fairy story about this girl named Hope and her boyfriend Bo, and they get married and then they get unmarried and then one of them dies and then they come back, and they get married again. They really love each other."

"Why do they get unmarried, then get married again?" he asked.

"Because they don't have any communications." I informed him. Mom always said it was their lack of a communication that caused all their problems.

"Why don't they buy one?" he asked.

"I have no idea, do you know where they sell them? Anyway, they marry other people too, in between their weddings to each other."

"I think that sounds stupid." said Edward, scowling.

"Why?" I challenged.

"Because if I loved someone I wouldn't ever marry anyone else, even if we couldn't buy a communication." he declared.

Jessica looked over the fence and watched then ran inside.

"Oh, well, there goes our surprise for Dad." I huffed. I knew he would be pleased, he was always saying he wished he could afford to have a new paint job. So we had saved him heaps.

I kept painting as fast as I could so all four wheels matched and Mom looked really surprised when she came out the front door.

"Da dum!" I said. Edward grinned, we knew we had done a great job.

Renee walked up and looked at the truck from every angle then burst into laughter.

"God, it almost looks better." she choked out.

"Do you think Dad will be surprised?" I asked her.

"Oh, Bella Darling, he will be speechless." she said, and shook her head.

She helped us clean the brushes, assuring us we had done enough painting and she stood open mouthed at the sight of the shed. I told you it was good.

"Now, we need to stand these jars of turps on some newspaper." she said

"Dad's got old magazines in the truck." I piped up.

"What old magazines?" she asked.

"Stupid ones, with ladies with no clothes on. Edward and I were looking at them before. Will I get them?" I offered.

Renee turned and looked at us both.

"You probably should forget all about those magazines, they are about to go on the bonfire. And if your father says one thing about your little painting game, believe me, he will wish he had never been born."

She marched out to the truck and soon the incinerator in Nan's back garden was full of naked lady magazines and when Dad got home and let out a yell when he saw his truck, Mom marched out and 'had a few quiet words' with him, and he didn't say anything. I thought he would say thank you at least.

xOx OxO

Edward sat in the rocking chair and pulled me onto his knee.

"I feel responsible." he said.

"What for? You didn't shoot Jake." I answered.

"If I had just quit and stayed here and married you myself, it would have never happened."

"Probably not." I agreed. I never would have married Jake if Edward didn't visit war zones.

"I'm quitting. I'm not going back." he said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"You have been through enough. I can't leave you again."

"We can't just step back into where we were. Do you have a girlfriend?" I asked, terrified of his answer.

"Why would I have a girlfriend?" he asked.

"You must have dated other women since I left."

He shook his head.

I looked into his clear, green eyes.

"Really?"

"No, I have never dated anyone but you." he answered.

"But you knew I was marrying Jake. What did you plan to do?"

"Just be your friend, be here in whatever capacity you let me be. Be Godfather to your kids."

"Edward, no. You just need a wife who accepts your job. You know any woman would be thrilled to marry you."

"I already asked the only woman I will ever marry and she turned me down. Six times."

"You know why." I answered.

"Well, it will be different now. I will get some boring job, I don't care. We have to be together and it took Jake dying to open both our eyes to that fact. We can't be with anyone else, even the universe won't allow it."

"We didn't kill him." I stated.

"No but we would have. Do you honestly think you would have stayed with him? Forever, Bella?"

"Forever is a long time." I answered.

"Not for us, for us it will never be long enough. Eternity won't be long enough."

I sat on his lap in silence. Would I have ended up leaving Jake for Edward, when he finally got sick of adventure and wars and came home? I wish I could say I would have stayed with my husband, but I knew the truth.

Renee came in and took our dinner dishes.

"Oh good. You two are talking at last."

"I doubt you would approve of the conversation." I snarked at her.

"Bella, stop fighting it and follow your heart this time." she said sadly, and closed the door.

Edward took my hand and led me to the bathroom and put me into the shower, and he stripped and stepped in behind me.

He silently washed my body like he used to when we lived together and I let him.

Then he dried us both and carried me back to my bed, which miraculously was freshly made and turned down.

I silently thanked my Mom and Edward slid me into the crisp sheets then climbed in himself, both of us naked.

He rubbed his hands on my arms and pulled me in close.

"One day soon, as soon as you are ready, I am claiming you back. I will make you forget you ever slept with him." he promised.

"Edward." I said, taking his face in my hands. "I didn't."

He frowned and looked at me closely.

"You know you can't lie to me, right?" he asked.

"Am I lying?" I asked back.

He bent and kissed my lips and ran his hands over my back and pulled my body so we touched all the way down.

"Why not?' he asked when he stopped kissing me.

"It wasn't me, it was Jake. He wanted us to wait for the Honeymoon."

The whole memory flooded back, me naked, waiting, the knock on the door.

I burst into tears and Edward rubbed my back until I feel asleep.

xXx oOo xXx

The funeral was horrendous, and I didn't even try to cope. Edward led me wherever I needed to go, and I stood beside him, numb and speechless.

This could not be happening, people do not get shot in Forks. Charlie had never had a case of murder in all the years he had lived here. People died, sure, accidents happened, teens died in car wrecks, and drunks wandered onto the road and got hit by buses now and then, and people drowned at LaPush when they misread the undertow.

But murder?

My very worst fear had come true. I was a widow in my twenties. At least we had no kids. Then I cried because we had no kids. I had seen our kids, two little black haired , brown eyed children with coffee skin, running freely on the beach as I sat and watched them play. A boy and a girl. I had debated whether to name the boy after Jacob, or whether we should keep Billy's name going.

Would that be confusing? Would he get tagged Old Billy and our son Young Billy? Would he care? He would probably love it, see it as an honor.

For a girl, I favored Aquene, Jake's late mother's original name. She was called "Queenie" but I liked the sound of Aquene, it means Peace.

Jake had agreed it was the perfect name for our daughter but now she would never be.

People hugged me, but it brought back the wedding, just a week ago, then they hugged me with celebration, and hope, now it was in sorrow and pity.

I felt myself start to slip back into the darkness and Edward scooped me up in his arms and took me to his car and strapped me in, unresisting.

I gazed outside and watched the houses and trees flash past, and Edward pulled into his parents yard and took me from the car, carrying me into the music room and laying me on the chaise lounge.

He sat at the piano and started playing something so fitting I just lay there and listened, and cried. It evoked Jake, and his smile, and his never ending hope, and his love for me and mine for him.

It touched on our hopes and dreams and it ended with a promise that he would always be here for me, in my heart and our love with live forever, side by side with the love Edward and I shared.

"What's it called?" I asked.

"Jake and Bella's Story" he replied.

"When did you write it?"

"I have been fooling with it for a couple of years. Since you started dating him. I planned on playing it at your wedding."

"Thank you." I said, simply.

He played it again, and I shut my eyes and remembered my engagement to Jacob.

He had been like a cat on a hot tin roof all that day, and I was even getting annoyed.

"Sit down, Jacob, you are driving me crazy. I have 28 writing books to grade and you are distracting me."

He sat and flicked the tv on, then changed the channel a hundred times, flicking through them too fast to even see what was being shown.

He paused on the news channel and I looked up when I heard that familiar velvety voice.

"Casualties have risen to 98 and it is suspected to be much higher, but as the inner regions are inaccessible at the moment, due to the danger of more military action, it will be days or weeks until the real number is realized. This is Edward Cullen reporting."

Jake flicked the channel, then turned off the tv altogether.

"Go do something. Fix a car, ride your bike." I suggested, unable to detect why he was so unsettled.

"Bella, I was going to save this for tonight, at the restaurant, but.."

He dropped to one knee and grabbed my hand.

"Nooo, Jake." I pleaded.

"No, don't ask now, or no you won't marry me?" he asked, looking into my eyes.

"Both. I don't want to get married, not yet. I am not ready."

"Will you ever be? It's been two years, Bells, and if I felt you were moving forward, making progress towards being ready, I would wait. But you are still stuck."

"I can't help it."I said, softly.

"Answer me this, then, are you trying to make me wait until his five years are up, and if he makes it home, are you running back to him? Am I your substitute, your Plan B?"

"No." I assured him. "He doesn't have that five year limit now, he will keep doing this until they scrape him up and send him home to be buried." I shuddered at my words.

"So, you are not waiting for him?'

"Jake, I don't understand. I left Edward because I wasn't willing to wait and put my life on hold, and see him die one day and destroy me. You know all this, you are my life now."

"It doesn't feel that way. Why can't we get married, and have a baby of our own, and act like people who are moving on? Everyone thinks you are just filling in time with me."

I was shocked at his words. Did they?

I thought back to last night, sitting in a bar somewhere with Alice and Rose.

Alice had a book full of wedding gowns with her, it was her constant companion these days since she got engaged to Jasper, and she was showing me the dresses she thought would suit me.

"So, when are you and Jake going to take the plunge?" she asked me. Rose stopped eying off the bartender and faced us.

"Yes, Bella, it's getting a little old. Or is this your way of never having to sleep with him?" asked Rose.

"It's Jake's idea, not mine, to wait for the honeymoon, I would share his bed anytime he wanted."

"Easy to say when you know he will never change his rules." said Rose dismissively.

"I want to sleep with Jake." I stated, frowning at the lack of conviction in my voice.

Alice raised her eyebrows.

"Is this what it is all about? Not sleeping with anyone else but Edward?" she asked me quietly.

"No, I dunno." I answered, shaking my head.

"Jake is safe, he won't touch her unless she marries him, so she keeps her number at one forever. That's why she suddenly got a whole lot more interested in him when he told her his rules. She was half hearted at best earlier, and how often did she give in and date him before she knew nothing was expected except a goodnight kiss at the door at the end of an evening out with him? Our little Bella suddenly found Jake a lot more attractive when sex got taken off the table." Rose retorted.

Did I?

"How do you really feel about sleeping with him?' Alice asked.

"I want to, I miss sex."

"Miss sex, or miss sex with Edward?" Rose asked, stripping it bare, draining her glass and waving a hand at the bartender ,and holding up her empty glass. She did her famous smile that promised all sorts of things, and he materialized beside her in a flash, handing her a new drink, and placing ours on the table, never taking his eyes off Rose. She dismissed him but left him hot and hopeful.

Rose loved playing games, but she would no more cheat on Emmett than fly to the moon.

"Of course I miss sex with Edward, who wouldn't? He was so...amazing." I sighed.

"You are seriously fucked up," said Rose. "Just tell Edward to quit and get his ass home and marry you,"

"Rose, he had his chance. Is he here, or is he off getting shot at? He never cared enough for me to want to stay alive." I said sadly.

"Bella, not every correspondent gets killed, you really need to make up your mind, choose a path and stay on it until the end."

"I already chose." I reminded them both.

"Then why haven't you married Jake or insisted he sleep with you?" demanded Alice."Don't give me any crap about his rules, Bella Swan has never obeyed a rule in her entire life."

That was true.

Why was I agreeing to Jake's ideas, I never bent for anyone, I always dismissed anything that didn't suit me.

If Edward had insisted on waiting until the honeymoon, I would have married him on my eighteenth birthday.

The first time we had sex, proper sex, full sex, because God knows we had every other type of sex, many many times, was the night of my eighteenth birthday. I had always kept an honest and open dialog with Esme, and she knew we had stuck to our promise, but she also knew it was now invalid. She had handed me a present at my party that afternoon, for me to open and all to see, a pretty set of lingerie, chaste enough to be acceptable, but sexy enough to make Edward swallow and step back a few paces.

Then after the party, she cornered me and handed me my 'real' present,an envelope with a voucher for a night's accommodation in the Honeymoon suite of the best motel in Port Angeles.

"You may as well do it instyle." she smiled, and kissed my cheek.

I blushed and thanked her.

"I already told Renee what's happening, and Charlie thinks you are staying with Rose to help her with Ronan. Poor Rose hasn't had a decent nights sleep since that baby was born." winked Esme. We all knew Ronan slept like a log, Emmett never shut up about what an amazing child he was.

"Thanks." I smiled again.

I had a free pass.

Edward's grin revealed he knew everything, and he openly left with his parents when the last guests left, and I climbed into Emmett and Rose's car to "go babysit" baby Hale/Cullen. Rose had insisted on keeping her own name after she and Emmett married.

"Emmett, our house is that way." reminded Rose, as he started to turn towards the Cullen house.

"Oh, yeah, sorry."

He did a complete turnabout and waved to Charlie, who stood watching us from the front door. Renee kissed his cheek and pulled him inside.

"I don't think Charlie bought the story." said Emm.

"You know Dad, he would rather have the fantasy than the reality." I answered. "So long as he thinks we think he bought the story, all will be fine."

Edward was waiting beside his car outside Emm's house, and I blew them both a quick kiss and ran towards him. He scooped me up and kissed me hungrily.

"Eighteen at fucking last." he sighed, nuzzling against my neck.

"You are wasting valuable time, Edward." yelled Rose, and we laughed and got in the car and headed for Port Angeles.

The motel was nice, clean, fancy, set in a pretty setting with gardens all around, but we didn't care about anything but the bed.

Edward stripped me so slowly I thought I would scream, but finally we were both naked, and suddenly I felt a little shy. This was a major event, I would no longer be a virgin after tonight. God knows I wanted to jump him years ago, in fact, I thought I put up a very convincing case for him taking me when I turned sixteen and became legal but he reminded me we had promised Esme, and she remained convinced sixteen was just too young for us to really know what we wanted from life, and she begged us once again to wait.

I had sulked for the first time in my life, I wanted to be a woman, and know my man in every way, but Edward had distracted me. He had lain me in his bed, and whispered in my ear.

"There is something new we could try."

I wasn't going to be bought off so easily, but he had peaked my interest.

"What? What could possibly be anywhere as good as real sex?" I snarked.

"Open your legs." he said, and I did, when did I ever keep them closed to him?

"This is where you feel the most sensitive, right?" he asked as he grazed his fingertips lightly over my clit.

"Mmmm" I answered, pushing my hips higher.

"I want you to be very still. I just want to try one thing." he said, and his head suddenly disappeared as he moved down my body, kissing my throat, my nipples, my bellybutton, and then my mound.

I waited, still mad he had refused to sleep with me, then next thing I forgot what I was mad about.

He had forced my legs wider apart, and dipped his mouth against me right there, his tongue stroking where his fingers had been, and I moaned out loud. My God. Why hadn't we done this before?

He had instructed me what felt good when I made my first attempts at giving him a blowjob, but I never knew he could do the same for me.

His tongue tantalized me and I rocked against his mouth as he experimented, licking, stroking, flattening his tongue hard against my clit, then he sucked it in and I gasped and watched the fireworks explode in my head.

"Edwaaarrrddd."

My God. Suddenly the thrill of his fingers seemed tame and redundant.

I wanted this to happen as often as possible.

He smirked and kissed me and pushed his tongue into my mouth so I could taste my own flavor.

"Delicious." he murmured.

"Not as good as you taste." I answered honestly. I had been warned jizz was pretty disgusting, and to suck on a mint beforehand but I liked how Edward tasted when he came in my mouth.

I tasted more musky, less appealing, in my opinion.

Now he descended just as he had been doing for two years and I was about to complain, come on, we can do the real thing, Carlise had put me on the Pill months ago. Neither of us had been anywhere near another person sexually, there was no risk to either of us of disease.

But once his tongue hit, I decided the main event could wait until after the fireworks. This time he pushed a finger inside my sex as I rocked on his tongue, then a second and finally a third. It was slightly distracting as he flexed them and stretched me, but his tongue kept me moaning and urging him to do more. Finally I stiffened and sighed as my body peaked in his mouth, and he rubbed his fingers in and out with the added wetness.

He slid back up and looked into my eyes, one hand stroking himself, unnecessarily I thought, he was already as hard as steel.

He entered his tip inside me as he withdrew his fingers and I smiled as he inched in, he wanted to keep it painless for me but I was a band aid girl, I wanted to get it over and I pushed against him

"Lie still." he ordered. "Be patient, Bella. All good things come to she who waits."

I'm never good at waiting but this time, I gave in and let him enter at his own pace.

God, he felt so good. He was filling me, slowly, and my body was expanding around him, and we fit perfectly together.

Then he was completely encased in me and he grinned, it had not hurt at all. He had been right, again.

"Okay, now the fun part." he promised and he pulled out almost then pushed back in and I lay back and closed my eyes.

"Open you eyes," he whispered, so I did. "I want to watch you when you come, and I want you to see what is is like for me." he added, shivering slightly as he started to get into a rhythm.

I locked gazes with him and he eased in and out and smiled before his mouth claimed mine, and it made him quicken his stroke and push in harder.

"Bella. Bella, I, my, .." he babbled and I ground against his hardness and suddenly the fireworks hit me, without warning.

He paused and pumped inside a second later, and grabbed me as closely to his writing body as he could.

I watched his eyes, saw him almost close them as he smiled softly and he lay his face against my throat and kissed me gently, as we pulsed together, like we were only the one person.

We lay like that for ages, neither of us wanting to move, until it occured to me we only had one night.

"Edward, food then do that again." I suggested and he rolled to my side and grinned.

"I knew it would be amazing but it was...more." he said and I agreed.

By the next morning, we were pretty damn good at it and had found our rhythm and pace, and I wanted to try being on my hands and knees like that naked lady in that magazine so long ago.

Edward had just showered, and I had as well but I was out first so I posed myself and gave him the full view as he walked out the bathroom door back into the bedroom. I heard his breath hitch and he gasped, and he was over me, pushing inside, without a word.

I quite liked that position, he hit new and interesting areas. I was sure we would master this as well in no time.

"Room service,breakfast." called a voice from the door, fortunately locked, and I silently cursed Esme for thinking of everything.

"Leave. it .out .there," Edward managed to choke out as he pounded in and out, grabbing my hips tightly , never missing a beat.

Who says men can't multitask?


	5. I Would Wear A White Dress

Forevermore

Chapter 5

I Would Wear A White Dress

Edward

I lay beside Bella and watched her sleep. How the Hell did we end up here,like this? Her widowed. Widowed for Fucks sake, it was just so wrong. She should never have married Jake but that was all my fucking fault. How selfish could one person be, expecting her to wait five years for me to get over my obsession with war and soldiers?

I knew she loved me with all of her being and I knew we were meant to be together but I arrogantly expected her to play the game my way, and just accept I needed to do this.

Needed? Wanted. Wanted was the reality. I loved the thrill of being in the middle of things, the bullets that whizzed past only made me more determined to stay and to show the complacant folks at home what was going on, what we were party to continuing.

I had so many ideas, I wanted to show the the other casualties, the women left without a husband, the mother's who saw their sons die, and often their daughter's too. The farmers who could no longer farm their land, the produce poisoned and inedible. Sure, they still ate it when there was nothing else, but their children were becoming sick and dying, just as surely as if they ate nothing.

I was becoming recognized, I would hear cries of "Edward." as they saw me each time I returned, weighed down with supplies of water and fresh vegetables and tinned meat the Red Cross provided,my rusty truck loaded to groaning, almost feeling unworthy of the food I kept for myself. They needed it more but without me getting their stories out to the rest of the world, nobody would be forced to care. The people at home in their snug little houses needed to know the reality of war, it wasn't just the soldiers who died each day, it was the ordinary civilians who perished along side them.

These kids never had the luxury of playing toy soldiers like we had , they were grabbed and shown how to aim and fire weapons almost as big as themselves, and they were forced into the main battles.

I was sick of the small dead bodies, but I had to show everyone this, it had to be drummed into their heads via their televisions on a nightly basis.

Now Jake was a casualty of another kind of war.

We had problems of our own, gangs of just as deadly assassins, running through our cities and now it seems, branching out to the suburbs and towns beyond.

He was just as dead as if he had been killed in a warzone.

Staying home,staying safe, had not worked for him. Maybe now Bella would see, we all die, we only die once and there is no safe zone.

It could have been me, if I had agreed to quit and she had agreed to marry me, who is to say I wouldn't have been just as distracted, and left my headlights on, and my car was possibly even more appealing than his had been.

He had saved for years to upgrade from the VW Rabbit he rebuilt in his teens and now he finally had such a nice car, someone was willing to kill him for it.

She was still mine, despite the wedding, despite Jacob, she would always be mine. I will probably never tell her the relief I felt when I got sent to Afghanistan halfway home to Forks for their wedding. I don't think I could have sat there and watched her marry him, promise to love and honor him, with her body. It was my body, I was the one who touched her first and now I know he never took her, it seems like Fate kept her for me alone.

I looked at her wedding dress, hanging in the corner of the room. She refused to let Renee pack it away.

Her second white dress.

I thought back to her first.

Mom had taken me shopping for Bella's thirteenth birthday present.

I had always made sure I gave her things she really wanted, not things her mother thought she should have. The line of virtually untouched dolls in her bedroom spoke of years of unwanted gifts. The first year, I insisted my Mom buy Bella a pirate pencilcase like Mike had, and also one for me. They came in two sizes, so I grabbed two of the larger version, so we would be different to Mike, and Mom let me choose pencils and crayons and safety scissors and a set of erasers to put inside the case, and a lockable diary to go with it as well. Bella had a lot of secrets and they needed to be recorded somewhere safe from adult's eyes.

Mom looked through the pile of girl's diaries, in vain, there were none with pirates.

"This one's pretty." she said, hopefully.

It was yellow and had bees on the cover.

Maybe.

I hunted through until I found the perfect one, it was blue and had soft white clouds and the sun and a rainbow in the sky.

Bella loves rainbows.

The look on her face when she opened her gift told me I had chosen well.

"Wow, Edward, just what I wanted!" she exclaimed.

When she had opened Jess's gift, which contained a pink washer, a cake of pink soap and a comb, she had screwed up her eyes, then she saw Renee's expression, and she politely spouted "Thank you Jess, that was thoughtful of you." as she left it on the table and ran towards Alice and I as we arrived.

Alice had wanted to give Bella a gift as well, and not just have her name added to my card, which I had spent ages making. I found a picture of a real pirate, not a Disney type, and copied it onto a blank card, then I colored it in and smudged real dirt on his face and hands. Then I drew a girl pirate beside him, and dressed her in the same clothes as he wore, as I was not sure what girl pirates wore, but if Bella became a pirate when she grew up, I knew she would never wear a dress. Not on a ship, not while stabbing bad pirates with her sword.

Alice had chosen a Tshirt with special crayons. The tshirt was just white but you could draw on it with the crayons and then an adult could iron over the picture and it would stay on forever. Bella often drew on her clothes but Renee always smacked her for it and scrubbed the pictures off, she always had a big bucket in the laundry of clothes soaking due to Bella's enthusiasm. Sometimes it was just dirt, often it was leaves, grass stains, and most days, crayon as well as she decided to be a mouse or a chicken in our games and she wrote her new name on her front.

It seemed like a smart idea to me but the way Renee carried on, I never wrote on my own clothes. My Mom probably would not mind as she sent me in old clothes that had been Emmett's when he was a kid, so I could get dirty.

"Accept the inevitable" was my Mom's motto. Sometimes she just tossed the clothes I came home in, straight into the trashcan and didn't even try and wash them. But she was never angry.

"Children have to be allowed to be children." she said when Dad raised an eyebrow the day Bella painted the rainbow on my face. I wished I had known it was there and hadn't rubbed my eyes and spoiled it. And I never got to keep any of it anyway because Renee washed it all off me. I had that photo of Bella with her rainbow cast and me with my rainbow face, framed on the desk in my bedroom.

When Bella opened Alice's present, she smiled and held the package up triumphantly.

"Look Mom, a Tshirt I CAN draw on." she skited happily.

She turned to a very excited Alice and gave her a hug and a kiss.

"This is the bestus present I ever got, Alice." she said, winking at me over Alice's shoulder so I knew she really liked mine better but she wanted to make my sister happy.

Alice grinned and jumped up and down on her tippytoes, clapping her tiny hands.

Jessica narrowed her eyes, and looked sulky, but really, who is ever going to like getting soap as a gift, certainly not Bella!

Jake handed her a box and stood there, smiling as she opened it. Inside was a carved picture frame Billy had made. It was beautiful, and Bella traced her fingers over the leaves and vines and the wolfs head he had cleverly fashioned on the edge.

"Amazing, thank you, Jakey" she said, and pulled him in close for a kiss.

Inside was a photo of Bella and Jake at Jake's party. I hadn't been invited, but she said it was pretty boring. Lots of old people patting her head and Renee never let her play outside in the red dirt that made up the ground at the Rez.

She had to stay in Billy's house and play baby games with Jake but she did say the birthday cake was good, chocolate with chocolate icing, she even managed to save Alice and I a piece though it was a bit squashed by the next day. We ate it anyway, I loved that she even thought about me when I wasn't there.

I looked at the photo, Jake was wrapped in Bella's arms and she was laughing and they looked so happy and friendly, I hadn't ever realized before that she really did like Baby Jake. It made my tummy feel a bit funny.

While Renee organized games, Bella opened the bag the Tshirt was in and she asked Alice and I to draw on it with her, so we all sat together and she even didn't mind when you couldn't tell what Alice had drawn.

"That's fantastic, Alice, now I will have a picture of yours forever." she said and Alice smiled. Alice loved Bella and wished she was her sister. I know she loved Mom and Dad and didn't want to go live at the Swan's house, but she did wish Bella would come live with us. She had Mom put a second bed in her bedroom and whenever Charlie and Renee needed some adult space on weekends, Bella slept over, and I would hear them both laughing and whispering and wished I could sleep in with the girls but Emmett laughed and said that would be a pleasure I had waiting for me when I got older, and my sister would not be involved.

Whatever that meant.

Renee ironed the picture for us and hung the tshirt on the line to cool, and Alice stood under it, and clapped her hands.

I had drawn pirates, of course, like on my card, Alice told Bella she had drawn a fairy so Bella drew another fairy beside it and wrote "Alis Fairy" and "Bella Fairy" under them. Then she wrote "Pirate Edward husben" and "Pirate bella wive" under my pictures, then we covered the rest of the front of the Tshirt with butterflies in every color. Jakey wanted to draw too, so Bella turned the shirt over and let him and Jess draw on the back.

Renee said we all did a great job and took the shirt to iron.

Bella wore her Tshirt until it started ripping at the seams because she grew so much over the years but then she put it on her big Teddybear and kept it forever. It was still on the bear in her old bedroom here.

Her first white dress was a denim dress in a window in a shop in Port Angeles. Renee had taken us shopping, just Bella and I, one weekend. Bella was having a party, and Renee was going to let her choose her own dress. Bella was complaining and arguing that she needed jeans more than a dress she would never wear again, and Renee was sick of her by the time we went past the jeans shop.

"Mom, look at this, it's perfect." cried out Bella, stopping at the window, pointing to The Dress.

It was plain, just white, no frills or flowers, but it was Bella.

"No, not white." said Renee, grabbing her hand and going in the shop to ask if it came in navy denim.

It did, so Renee made her try it on and she looked lovely. I rarely saw her legs bare, but they were longer and shapely now, and the dress was mercifully short. I liked it.

I knew Bella didn't, but when she saw the look on my face, she shut her mouth and nodded her agreement.

As soon as we got home, I begged my Mom to take me back to buy the white dress. I knew Bella's size, I looked in the blue denim dress, so Mom sighed, and laughed.

"Really, Edward? Couldn't we buy her something here?"

"She wants that dress, Mom, she loved it." I begged.

"I suppose you and Emmett both need new jeans and Alice could do with some new underwear."

Since Alice had started to play more with Bella and I, her dresses were getting grubbier but her underwear copped the worst of the dirt we sat in as we dug and made mudpies.

So, we all got put in the jeep and Mom took me back to the shop. I ran in and asked for the white dress in the window.

"This is the last one, it's much nicer than the navy." said the girl behind the counter. It was Bella's size! "The tiny one's take the longest to sell." she commented to my mother.

I happily tried on a dozen pairs of jeans and didn't care which one's my Mom settled on buying me, I had Bella's white dress!

I wrapped it carefully and attached the card I had made her. They were more sophisticated nowadays. I had taken a photo of us both, and had made a white card frame and I was pleased at how it turned out.

Alice had asked to borrow the photo from beside my bed. I had hesitated.

"What are you doing with it? I don't want it wrecked", I warned her eleven year old self.

She just smiled and promised to bring it right back.

She did and I thought nothing more of it.

At the party, Alice handed her gift over, and Bella opened it and laughed. Alice had copied the photo onto transfer paper and printed it onto a white Tshirt.

"Alice, you always give me the coolest gifts." Bella said, hugging her.

She pulled the Tshirt on over the navy dress so it now looked like a mini skirt, and I liked it even more.

I shyly handed her my gift and she pulled me into the diningroom to open it. Nobody else was in there.

Her whole face lit up and she hugged the white dress, then hugged me tightly, and I sighed as I smelt her hair. It smelled of vanilla and strawberries and I never knew girls smelled so different to boys before. I stayed there as long as she let me, then when she stepped back, she was blushing, so I guess she liked the hug, too.

She wore that white dress everytime we went anywhere, every party, even to school when it started to get a bit scraggy at the hem as it endured repeated washes, but she never got it dirty. She treasured that dress, and it was around a lot longer than the navy one, which she managed to wear out in a matter of months.

Every day I spent with Bella, over the years, I really listened to her, so I always knew what she really wanted for her birthday.

The year she turned 15, was the first time I had no clue. Charlie had given her a clothing allowance so she bought whatever clothes she wanted for herself.

The other girls all wanted make-up but Bella thought it was stupid, painting your faces, but she always laughed and winked at me, recalling my painted face.

I wracked my brains, and finally there was no time left. Alice had bought her a cd voucher, unsure what cd's Bella would want.

I made her a cd of my music but I wanted something else. I was ready to give up when I saw the charm bracelet in the jeweller's window. It cost more than my parent's would have wanted me to spend, but it was my money and I carefully picked out several charms. A tiny grand piano, a serpent, in memory of that snake we never managed to catch, and a crystal heart that threw rainbows in the sunlight. Perfect.

I waited until everyone else had had their gifts opened and Bella had thanked them, and I pulled her outside and handed her the velvet box. Her eyes went wide and she opened it, excitedly.

I lifted the bracelet out and clasped it onto her wrist.

She laughed and held her hand up so the sun hit the crystal, and she made the rainbows dance over my face.

"Thank you, Edward, I truly love it."

She threw her arms around me and pulled me close to her body, that was changing all the time, I felt her breasts push into my chest and impulsively, without even thinking, I brushed my lips against hers.

She kissed me back and I stayed there, lips locked, until she started to wilt in my arms.

I held her and jerked back, scared of what I had done.

"I think I forgot to breathe." she said with a sigh.

I laughed and kissed her again.

"Thank you, you always give me exactly what I want for my birthday." she said.

"I am glad you like the bracelet." I said.

"Oh, that too." she replied, and ran inside, leaving me with an uncomfortable feeling in my pants.

Jake gave her a dream catcher and a bracelet with a tiny carved wolf on it, and he frowned when he went to put it on her wrist and saw mine already there.

He placed it on her other wrist and looked kind of disgruntled all the rest of the party. Bella danced with most of the boys, but between each boy, she danced with me, and Jake definitely noticed and he left without even having his turn to dance with her.

I realized that day we had all changed into something new.

And Jake wanted her as much as I did.

I was sure she wanted me, I was the only one she kissed, no matter how much the other boys tried, she would whisk her head to one side at the last minute and she avoided the games of Spin the Bottle and instead, we sat on the stoop and kissed each other.

Charlie caught us and cleared his throat loudly behind us, so we parted and went back inside and endured some of Renee's idea's of suitable games, and soon everyone left, and Bella walked and sat outside with Alice and I while we waited for our Mom to pick us up.

She held my hand and squeezed it, and I felt my heart jump and beat louder in my chest.

"So, are you Edward's girlfriend officially now?" Alice asked.

Bella blushed and I pulled her to her feet and walked away from my nosy sister, and leaned against the side of the house, with her against the wall. I leaned in and kissed her again, and she kissed me back when my kiss ended.

"Bella, will you be my girlfriend, officially, please." I asked.

"I thought we were more than that." she answered.

"Oh, we are. But it will be best to start where everyone else does, and have the labels they cope with, and expect, don't you think?" I replied.

"Then, yes, I will be your girlfriend, Edward." she replied.

My Mom hit the horn and I hurried out, and waved until I could no longer see her as Mom drove us down the street.

xXx oOo

I hope our history together will make her see we are meant to be together and she will be able to endure the final trip I am obligated to make. I rang my boss and told him I was looking for a job here in the States and he argued I was doing so much good, I should not be even considering giving up my current job, but I can't keep torturing my Bella and she will need me now, more than ever.

I knew I had a lot of ground to make up. She had moved on and become Jacob's girl, now I had to remind her of who she really was.

I was just so happy she had never slept with him, I fully expected they had been sleeping together for a year at least by now. I blessed Jacob and his morals.

I had a few things to confess, I was a 24 year old man when she left me, although the thought of sex had not arisen for months afterwards, I had been used to a full sex life for six years and couldn't slip back to nothing at all.

I came close once to sleeping with another girl.

Rose came to my apartment and handed me a bottle of Jack and a dozen cold bottles of beer, and we had a few drinks.

"Okay, Rose, why are you here? What's this about?" I asked.

"She accepted Jacob's marriage proposal last night." Rose said.

I hung my head and thought of the six times she refused me.

"I guess I knew this was coming." I said, drawing figures in the condensation on the bottle I held.

"When?"

"I think Jake would have her down the aisle today but she wants a long engagement and I think it will be six months at least, a year maybe, before he wears her down."

I paced the room and tugged my hair.

I had watched them together. She seemed happy, in a quiet way. It was nothing like we had been.

"She's fucking settling, Rose. " I growled.

"You can stop her. Just quit and marry her yourself."

"I don't want to quit. Why can't she accept I need to do this? I asked her for five lousy years, Rose. We will be together forever, what's five years against forever?"

"More than she can cope with." answered Rose.

I sighed and sat down.

"Do you think she will go through with it or is she simply letting me know she has other options?" I asked.

"A week ago, I would have said she was playing you, but something's changed."

"What?"

"She came to the hospital and visited me, and asked to hold Emma."

"So? She has held Ronan and Lilian plenty of times."

"Yeah, but I think she is ready for a baby of her own now. She held the others out of politeness. She held Emma like she was the most desirable thing in the world. It's completely different, Edward. When I held other people's babies, it never made me feel anything except when I was clucky and wanted one of my own, then they just looked cuter and felt softer and smelled so nice.

Maybe men don't get it, but the desire to have a baby is so strong at times, when we are ready. I had to practically pry my daughter back out of her arms. She and Jake stood in the corner of the room , both smiling at Emma as Bella held her,and then they did that goofy grin at each other, like 'we could have one of these'. It's hard to explain, but a woman can tell the difference between "What a sweet baby" ,meaning "what a sweet baby" and "I live for one of these in my arms" , even if a man can't. The words are the same but they mean something else entirely."

I sighed. I wanted kids, one day. But only if Bella was their mother.

"Jake then sat down and held Emma and I watched Bella, she was assessing him as a suitable father to her own baby. And he passed, Edward. She took photos of Jake with Emma. Please, who does that? Bella wanted a photo of her future, of the day the baby in the blanket was hers. She spent way too much on gifts for her, they came back the next night with more, just as a way to hold her again, and they left in each other's arms. If she doesn't head down the aisle soon, she will have her own little flowergirl when they do tie the knot. She is feeling the ticking, Edward."

"I can't give her that, not yet." I jerked my hand through my hair and slammed the bottle on the table.

Rose left shortly afterwards, to feed the baby that had evoked these feelings in MY wife, and I grabbed my jacket and headed out to find a bar. The local bars had never appealed, there were always women who had drunk a little too much who tried to grope me and tonight, I feared I may just let one. Several heads raised when I walked in and one blond appeared at my side and offered to buy me a drink.

I looked her over. Tall, where Bella was short, blue eyes instead of brown, blond hair instead of brunette, large hands as opposed to Bella's tiny ones.

Perfect.

I drank her drink and sat beside her and looked her over. Her hands touched me, on my arm, then my shoulder, and as the night went on, she started groping at my pants.

She felt my body harden beneath her and she latched onto my mouth and aggressively kissed me, her hands all over me, pawing at my eager hard on, writhing against it as she sat herself on to my knee.

"Does little Edward want to come out and play?" she whispered in my ear.

"He does." I answered, and let her pull me behind her outside into the alley.

She pulled her skirt up and dropped her underwear and grabbed at my pants.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are, little Edward" she sang and unzipped my fly.

Her hand reached in and grabbed me and I bucked and pushed her against the wall.

She opened her legs and tried to force me inside her but all I could see was Bella's face and I felt myself soften.

"Let Maggie fix that little problem." she said, and dropped to her knees and I realized what she was about to do. "No, no." I shook my head and backed away. Wrong lips, wrong mouth, I couldn't bear to look down on someone who was not Bella getting that close and intimate with me. I walked away without a backward glance and drove home, and spent the night wide awake, feeling ill at what had almost happened.

'It's not my fault, she should be here with me, she knows I can't live like a monk.' I reasoned with myself.

I didn't go near another woman for a long time, then one night Lauren was in the bar and she sat beside me and asked me what happened between Bella and I. She was different to how I remembered her from high school, she seemed happy just listening, as I almost cried over what had happened and was happening. I was sure Jake was sleeping with Bella, my Bella. It made sense for me to move on, she wasn't waiting for me, she wasn't coming back.

Lauren didn't try anything, she just sat with me and I asked her what nights she came in here, and she told me she was here most nights since Eric had left her.

We never dated, we just met up, and had a few drinks, and she helped me get through the day to day life I had when I was back here.

I went home with her one night, but it was just for the comfort of another broken person lying beside me, and she asked me if I wanted her to do 'anything' and I assured her, she was already doing all I needed her to do, just letting me lay beside her.

I went away on assignment the next day and after that, when I was back, I met Lauren at the bar and sometimes slept in her bed, but I never kissed her and she didn't want me to.

She offered me a blowjob the night I went to the bar, distraught over the small white wedding invitation that had been waiting in my mailbox when I got home from a particularly horrendous episode in a war nobody could ever win.

I shook my head, sex of any kind with anyone else was not going to help or fix anything. I lay with my head on her chest the entire night, crying silent tears and hating the universe.

One night about two weeks later, she was sitting smiling and she saw me enter and her face looked panicked. I walked over towards her and stopped when Eric walked out of the Men's Room and headed for her from the opposite direction. I turned and made for the booths at the back and she shot me a quick, grateful smile and when I 'ran into them' later I bought a round of drinks and talked like I hadn't seen Lauren for as long as I hadn't seen him.

The barmaid gave me a pair of raised eyebrows but she lowered them quickly when I handed her a twenty dollar tip, and she studiously ignored me for the rest of the night. When Eric told me they had split for a while but were back together and I tried to look surprised.

I left alone and decided not to go there again, in both meanings. Not to that bar and not to start another situation like that.

I was horrendously lonely, but I spent time with Emmett and Rose and their kids and hurt myself even more as I watched what I could have had but threw away.

How come Emmett can go into his office every day and push papers around and take his paycheck every other Friday, and it's enough?

To me, it would be like dying inside, never getting out there and seeing the real world, being part of life and death.


	6. And You Could Paint The Sunset

Forevermore

Chapter 6

And You Would Paint The Sunset.

Edward.

I felt there was no other answer other than to take Bella away for a while and let her recover without the constant, well meaning but annoying stream of visitors. She would be almost coping and someone new would call in, and offer her their sympathy and she would curl up into a ball again and lock me out.

"This is not doing her any good, Renee, I want to take her somewhere where nobody knows her, or knew Jake or has any idea she was widowed at her wedding."

"I don't think it is a good idea."

"Renee, I am not going to sleep with her, I am not that low. I know she needs time but she also needs space. I have always been able to fix her in the past, I can do it again."

"Well, how about we let Bella decide." she huffed, annoyed she was getting nowhere despite her best efforts.

Bella would drink what she was told to but she was back to barely eating and it wasn't good enough. I was not going to sit around and watch her die, like they all seemed perfectly happy to do.

Sam and Emily were the last straw, their baby son arrived three weeks after Jacob died and naturally they named him after their lifelong friend but it was more than Bella could take.

She ran from the door and I chased her and caught her in my arms and held her while she struggled and lashed out at me.

"Let me go." she cried, squirming in my arms.

"Where are you going to go? Where are you running to?" I asked her.

She slumped and I carried her back to her bedroom and climbed into bed with her and let her cry.

Once she was asleep, I grabbed her bag and repacked what clothes Charlie and Renee had brought here for her. I dashed home and grabbed clean clothes of my own and tossed my dirty ones into the washer/dryer and Esme , who was there cleaning my apartment and watering my near dead few houseplants, shoo'ed me away. I kissed her cheek and told her Bella and I would be away, somewhere, for a while.

"Do you want to take her to the cabin? The island? The beach house?"

"The beach house but don't tell anyone where we are, just say you didn't get to speak to me, please Mom. Bella needs room to breathe before they smother her to death."

I took the keys she unhooked from her keyring, and kissed her thanks.

Bella was drowsy when I helped her out to my car. Renee was two paces behind, demanding to know where I was taking her.

"Away. She will be safe and I will bring her back soon, as soon as she is ready."

I slammed her passenger side door and walked around to my own.

"Let her go, Renee, please."

She nodded sadly and grabbed my arms.

"I wouldn't trust anyone else with her, Edward. I know you will look after her."

I kissed her cheek and left before Charlie got home again and had the chance to decide it wasn't a good idea.

The trip was quiet, Bella woke up and stretched and smiled at me, then went back to sleep. I took that as her permission to be doing this.

The beach house fronted the expanse of ocean, and was about 3 hours drive from Forks.

Across the front was a boardwalk and jetty, and I unpacked the car while Bella took a shower, then took her out for lunch. She was not ready to talk again yet but she ate the soup and ham and salad roll, and I smiled at her efforts to recover and be good for me.

I walked with her, hand in hand, along the jetty and she stopped and sat down at the edge, with her feet dangling over the water. I sat beside her, and gazed at her while she gazed out at the sea.

"Do you remember the first painting you sold?"

"I do, right here, a thousand dollars seemed like a fortune."

Bella had come away with us, Mom, Dad, Alice, Emmett and Rose, and I, for a summer break while we were still in high school. She had just turned seventeen.

Mom insisted Bella share Alice's room, which they both were happy about, but I was so eager to be old enough to insist she shared my room, and bed, and another year seemed an eternity.

"This was the only way Renee and Charlie would agree to her coming with us, and we are not lying to them, and saying she stayed with Alice if she didn't. Now behave, you can be with her all day." Mom reminded me.

I took her swimming, Alice came too but she was just fifteen and starting to be more interested in boys than chatting endlessly with Bella at the beach. They saved that for at night, when I heard them reporting on all the 'hot' males they had spied that day. Bella assured me she was only checking them out for Alice's sake. I had noticed a few bikini clad girls myself so I trusted her to be truthful with me, as I was with her. No harm in looking.

The parents had gone off on a shopping spree and left Alice with us for once, she had seen an interesting male the day before that Bella wholeheartedly approved of, and she even decided to forgo the thrill and lure of the shops to see if he was there again.

We had eaten lunch, swum again, Bella and I had slept a little wrapped in a towel together, and now the girls were sunbathing/boy watching.

I took my easel and sat on the jetty, painting the outline of the sea touching the sky, and the gentle curl of the waves, but I was going slowly, waiting for the magnificence that hit when the sun lowered below the horizon and lit the sea and sky with golds and oranges and reds so rich and delicious, it was impossible not to be mesmerized at the beauty.

As twilight hit, I quickly started, and by nightfall, my painting was complete and I dropped my brush and sat back.

I had painted for an hour or maybe more, in a flat out frenzy, I painted like a played piano, completely in the moment, forgetting my surroundings, who I was with, everything else.

I smiled as Bella and Alice each stood at my side and both were in awe of the colors and mood I had caught. The electric street light flickered above us.

I stood up and stretched and suggested we go out to dinner. I was carrying my easel and supplies back and Bella and Alice were carefully holding each side of the canvas, walking with care, not even talking.

I felt the usual rush of relief that it was done and I could start to think of my next subject, maybe a bikini clad Bella, and as we paused to unlock the front door, a large Texan in cowboy hat and boots stopped the girls and looked at my painting in the glare of the artificial light.

"Well, now, that is a mighty fine piece of work. Who painted that?" he asked.

Alice pointed to me, and I swung the door open and dumped my stuff then walked back to the girls.

"I am one of those men who don't know anything about art except I know what I like, and I have taken quite a fancy to that painting, son. It would solve the problem of what to buy my wife for her birthday. How much do you want for it?" he smiled widely and opened a very stuffed wallet.

I quickly wondered if $250 would be too much, when he spoke again.

"$500? No, let's say an even grand. What do you think, boy?"

"Sure." I answered, before he changed his mind. He handed over the cash and then insisted we all went to dinner with him and his son, who was waiting in the restaurant.

"Edward, we need to shower, and change." warned Alice.

"Can we meet you there in half an hour?" I asked.

"That would be fine and dandy. Ladies."

He raised his hat and Bella blushed and Alice giggled and went inside. Alice showered first then Bella told me to, so I stripped and got in and had my eyes closed and my hair full of shampoo when I felt her step in behind me.

"Bella, how thoughtful of you to save water by sharing my shower with me." I said, rinsing my hair and reaching for her.

"Edward, I actually am just saving water, and time. Hands off."

She didn't say anything about looking so I allowed my eyes to roam all over her body, taking in her every curve, and appreciating God's handiwork. I had seen her naked before, just not in a shower for a while, water glistening as it ran down her breasts, then off her rounded backside.

"If you are finished, you can get out." she suggested, reaching for the shampoo.

"Let me do that." I begged, and washed her long, shiny hair free of salt and sand and rinsed it out.

I jumped out ahead of her and grabbed towels, putting one firmly around my waist to try and hide my problem as I towelled her dry.

"How much of a hurry are we in?" she asked.

"We have fifteen minutes, why?" I asked.

She was on her knees with her lips around my problem area, working me into such a frenzy of sensation and surprise, I dropped the towel, and was done a lot quicker than I wanted to be.

"Bellaaa." I shouted as I finished deep in her throat.

She licked her lips and stood and grabbed clean underwear and a long frock in midnight blue, and pulled them on.

The door opened just as I was doing up my jeans, and my sister, hair perfect, face freshly made up, looked in.

"Come on, you two. We should be there by now."

"Seven minutes, Alice." I answered, grabbing the hairdryer and brush and brushing Bella's long hair out and reminding myself to always lock my door in future.

That could have been quite embarrassing but Bella was smirking at me in the mirror as I worked on her hair. She licked her lips.

"You must be hungry, Bella. Let me do some quick make up for you." Alice suggested and started , keeping it light and natural.

"Oh, I had a snack, I am not starving." she replied, winking at me.

"You did? Darn, I wish I had, my stomach is eating itself. Come on, you are done." she exclaimed and headed for the door.

I raised my eyebrows, and grabbed Bella's hand.

"A snack?" I whispered in her ear.

"It was quite tasty." she answered.

I felt myself start to harden and thought of ...my parents, who were walking towards us.

That cured that problem.

"What's happening?" Dad asked, looking over Alice and Bella and smiling his approval.

"We were invited to dinner with a rich Texan who bought Edward's painting." said Alice.

"We are eating here ourselves, maybe we can all share a table." suggested Mom. Emmett and Rose had cried off dinner and headed back to the beach house so we went in and looked around.

"Over here, folks. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Monroe Jasper Whitlock the third. And who is this exquisite creature?" the middleaged man asked, taking my Mom's hand and kissing it.

"My parent's, Esme and Carlisle Cullen. I am Edward, by the way, this is my girlfriend Bella and my sister Alice."

I turned , my sister had stopped so fast we almost walked over the top of her. She was staring at the boy around my age, who was already sitting at the table. He was gazing at her as well, and he stood and bowed.

"Jasper Whitlock, at your service."

Alice glided over and sat at the chair he had offered beside him, and that was pretty much them gone for the night. They spoke in whispers only to each other, and seemed to forget the rest of us existed.

"Your son is a mighty fine artist. I will be sure to get him to sign my painting, one day it will be worth a fortune, mark my words."

I felt like blushing, and he laughed.

"No need for false modesty, modesty is for folks who know they have no talent. You, my boy, are gifted."

"Thank you, sir." I said, as Bella smiled so proudly my heart clenched.

"Edward has many talents." said Bella, with an innocent smile.

"What else does he do?" asked Mr Whitlock as he motioned the waiter over and ordered champagne and glasses all round.

"He plays the piano at concert level, composes, does brilliantly at all subjects at school, to mention a few." said Bella.

Mr Whitlock beamed.

"I knew it, I can always pick a true artistic genius when I see one, can't I, Jasper?"

His son looked up but was clueless about what was being said by anyone but my sister.

"Yes, indeed, Father." he replied, so I gathered this was his usual response. He immediately leaned towards Alice and continued their whisperfest.

Dad and Mr Whitlock soon got into a lively discussion and we all ordered our meals as they politely argued the merits of a private school education. Jasper was at a boy's only school in Seattle and wanted to leave, his father was hoping I was attending a private school so he could reinforce his argument for the system.

Carlisle was defending Forks High and explaining any student with dedication and natural ability could shine at any school, so Esme watched the two men and offered her opinion in the breaks, and Bella and I sat as close as possible and ate our dinner.

After a long evening, we left the adults to their brandy, and I walked back to the house with Bella, a few feet behind Alice, who was being accompanied to her doorstep by Jasper. Bella and I went inside and left them alone to arrange their next meeting in the morning. I signed the painting and handed it to Jasper, and he reluctantly left, promising Alice he would neither sleep nor breathe until they met again, and I laughed and shook my head.

Sure, Alice was quite pretty and she dressed well, and always went out of her way to look perfect, but I had never seen a man so smitten so fast.

"Alice and Jasper sitting in a tree." I started and she swatted at me.

Then she stopped as I got to the 'k.i.s.s.i.n.g.' part and smiled.

"You can bet on that. He will be kissing me tomorrow." she said, and marched upstairs to her room.

"Well, if that isn't true love, what is?" asked Bella, sitting on the couch.

I sat beside her and pulled her onto my lap.

"This is true love." I answered, and kissed her along the jaw and neck, finally catching her lips in mine and kissing her tenderly but it turned quickly into something more.

"I wish we knew what time Esme and Carlisle would be home." she sighed, and grabbed my hair and kissed me back.

"Come up into my bedroom, Alice won't even notice, the state she is in."

We ran upstairs and I knocked at Alice's door.  
"What?" she demanded, opening her door abruptly, cellphone in hand.

"Are you talking to him on the phone?" I laughed. "Alice, you just left him."

"We have a lot to learn about each other." she huffed.

"Bella wants to sleep in my room, would you lock your door and cover for her if Mom and Dad knock?" I asked.

"Sure, go away." she answered, shutting us out and sliding the privacy lock home.

I locked my door, and pulled my girl onto my bed and kissed her thoroughly, until she jerked back to gasp for air.

I slowly removed her clothes and slid us into bed, and pulled the covers over us, then headed for some fun and games under the blankets.

"What are you doing?' she asked, and I detected the hope in her voice.

"I believe I owe you two orgasms." I replied, sliding down her body, as she opened her legs eagerly.

"Hang on, I only gave you one." she remembered.

"Oh no, then you will owe me." I replied, and disappeared between her thighs.

xXx oOo xXx

I wondered if she was remembering the way that night ended, the first night we shared a bed for the whole night. I had come very close to forgetting my promise to my Mom, and if I had a condom, I think the agreement would have fallen by the wayside, but I meant what I said, I would never hurt her or risk her health and safety in anyway, so we kept to everything but what we both really wanted to do that night.

I loved just having her there in my arms, within kissing distance and found myself wishing my youth away. It was dragging on too long, we needed to get to the next level. Another year would be like another ten years, it seemed at the time.

Bella fell asleep, satisfied and exhausted, and I lay and watched her, and she surprised me when she spoke, as she seemed to be fast asleep.

"No, I am eighteen, now." she sighed, and squirmed in my arms.

"You forgot the year I was born, you wrote it down wrong. I am eighteen." she repeated.

I wish.

I stroked her down the side of her body and hushed her, and she smiled and cuddled so close, I knew we would be attending to each others needs again before she snuck out in the morning.

Rose slept in, determined to enjoy her short break from motherhood, seeing her parents insisted on babysitting, giving her and Emmett some alone time. Emmett, however, was sitting in a chair outside my room, and he smirked as I poked my head out to see if the coast was clear.

"Edward, who do you have in your room? Did Bella get lost in the night and sleepwalk into the wrong bedroom?" he asked.

"Shh." I warned, and opened the door so she could escape to Alice's room.

She opened the door and disappeared and Emmett high fived me with a smirk.

"It's about time you cashed that v card, bro." he laughed.

My face revealed my thoughts and he looked shocked.

"You had Bella in your bed all night and you didn't do the horizontal tango?" he hissed.

"I may have, had we had protection." I admitted. "But we agreed to wait until Bella turns eighteen."

He raised his eyebrows,

"295 days." I answered.

"Esme gave you the 'wait until she is 18' talk, then." he stated.

"Did you get it, with Rose?" I asked.

"Sure, but by the time she lay that on us, I was already tapping Rose." he answered.

"So, did you tell Mom? What did you do?"

"I promised her I would not progress any further with Rose until she turned 18, and we didn't." he laughed.

"Lucky bastard." I mumbled.

"Esme is not the voice of God, Edward. She doesn't have to know."

"Yeah, but we promised."

"Bella making you keep that promise?" he asked.

"Not likely, she tries everything to push me over the line," I confessed honestly.

"Then go for it, I have condoms, how many do you want?"

I looked at him and weighed things up. Condoms have a failure rate, maybe low, but it is there. Carlisle promised to put Bella on the Pill in plenty of time before her birthday, to give it time to work, and for her body to adapt, and they could iron out any problems quickly.

The responsible thing to do was learn some patience and wait. And keep our promise. It felt important, much as I wished it wasn't.

"No, we can wait." I answered, and Emmett narrowed his eyes at me.

"Really? You are serious?"

"I am. I want to do this right. Imagine if it broke, we would panic for weeks, and it's not worth the risk. It's Bella, Emmett, my Bella. I love her, I have always loved her. I would never hurt her."

Emmett surprised me by clapping me on the shoulder.

"Welcome to adulthood, little bro. You passed the hardest test of all. Well done."

I felt taller, better somehow.

I truly never wanted to hurt her.

xXx oOo xXx

I pulled her into me, and stroked her arm as she watched the greedy gulls fight for scraps a tourist tossed into the water.

"It will be alright, Bella, soon." I promised her.

"What are you saying? I will get used to him being dead? I have known Jake even longer than I have known you. I was at the hospital the night he was born, even though I don't remember. He was my baby. Renee never gave me a baby of my own, so Jake was my baby. I know he was annoying when you met him but Queenie had just died and he lost his Mommy. I have always wished I could turn back time and be nicer to him. I was such a horrible child." she wailed.

"You made up for it, you chose him, Bella, you married him. You turned me down six times." I reminded her.

"I turned him down more than that." she said.

"Really?"

"Yeah, he was more persistent than you. He asked me once a month. You asked me once a year."

"And I thought I was being too annoying." I sighed. I could have asked her once a month, once a week, daily. I wanted to.

I had no idea what to do for her.

"What can I do to help?" I asked.

"Just let me talk about him. We changed, he and I, you know that. He was lovely, Edward, he tried so hard to be what I needed."

Unlike me. I hung my head.

Maybe he had been the better option, how arrogant was I to assume I was the best man for her when I still had no intention of staying here.

I know I will go back. I have to, at least once more, but what about after that? Will I shrivel up and die in an office somewhere? Will it taint our love? Will I resent her?

She is right, she always was. We still want different things.

The same different things.

"On my birthday, he took me to the zoo. Do you remember how Renee would never consider taking me to the zoo when we were kids? She always said she had her own zoo, in her backyard. All the kids she minded. And the pets you and I forced on her. The bird with the broken wing. Remember Rusty the crow? How Renee figured it would get better and peck our eyes out. Remember digging for worms?"

Bella and I were on worm patrol but Jake and Alice insisted on helping and all four of us stood in the dirt patch. Jessica watched, from a distance and informed us we needed to hose the area so it was really wet first, so the worms would come to the surface, so we did that, and sure enough, we were able to grab them easily.

Jake held the bucket and Bella was teaching him how to count them as we dropped them in.

Alice was happy finding them but not catching them so she squealed whenever she uncovered one and either Bella or I pulled it out of the earth.

Bella dropped the latest, a very long, thin worm into the bucket.

"Hey, Jake, we were up to ten, now there's only six. Did you drop some?" she asked.

Jake opened his mouth and Bella actually screamed.

"Jakey is eating worms, Edward. Will it kill him? MOM!"

Renee came out in a rush and emptied Jake's mouth.

"What were you doing that for, Baby Jake?" she asked, pulling him onto her hip.

"Jake likes sgetti." he answered.

"Well, how about Renee makes Baby Jake some spaghetti and he doesn't eat Rusty's food?" she said calmly.

Bella was on the ground, terrified.

I had never seen her like that. Nothing scared Bella.

"Will he die?' she asked again.

"Don't be ridiculous, Bella. You used to eat worms all the time when you were a toddler and you aren't dead." stated her mother, taking Jake inside and giving him a drink while she cooked lunch for us all.

I sat beside Bella and held her hand, which was really cold.

"What made you think worms could hurt him?" I asked.

"Dad's dog died and the vet said it had worms inside that killed it." she said, ashen.

"They would have been a different kind of worm, these are garden worms, anyone can eat them." I should have been prepared for her next words.

"Prove it."

I took a worm out of the bucket and bit half an inch off and shuddered as I chewed it, my mouth open.

I hurriedly swallowed, and Alice shook, her little fists clenching and unclenching as she watched me.

"I'm not eating one." she said hastily.

"You don't have to, boys like dares, don't they Edward?" answered Bella.

"Sometimes, but I am not eating anymore, that was gross." I said, walking to the cage and feeding the rest of the worm to Rusty.

Renee decided to give us some cleaner activities and we washed up for lunch then had to sit at the craft table, Bella and I cutting out shapes from colored paper for the others to paste. Jessica cut her own shapes, cats, heaps of cats, she was going to grow up to be the weird old cat lady. Everything she owned had cats on it, and she had two cats and a kitten at home.

Tinkerbel, Peter Pan and Wendy they were named.

They regularly produced kittens and Renee regularly refused the offer of a free one from Jess's Mom.

"I don't think pets are a good idea for Bella." she used as her stock answer.

Bella wanted a puppy badly, when we got our puppy Rasputin. She came over to our house and sat in the outside gazebo and nursed him.

"I wish Mom would let me have a puppy." she sighed.

I was determined to get her one and asked Mom where Rasputin came from.

"Edward, no, you are not buying Bella a dog. Renee hates dogs and she has her childcare business to think of, she can't have a dog that might bite the children."

"Rasputin wouldn't hurt anyone." I defended.

"You don't know that. Renee has those horrid twin boys of the Webber's in her care, I am sure they would love to poke a puppy with a stick. Who knows what a dog would do if you hurt it or provoked it enough."

So for once, I didn't give my girl what she wanted.

Maybe that's when the spell was broken, the first time she realized I could not grant her every wish, and the first time I realized it as well. I was not always going to give her her every desire.

"What do you truly want, Bella?" I asked her weeks later as she lay beside me in the double hammock out the back of the beach house. We had spent the days relaxing, painting, swimming, and eating. I was glad she forgot not to eat here, the sea air made us ravenous.

"There's nothing I want that I can have," she answered.

"Tell me. There are always compromises." I suggested.

"Nope, not for my list."

"Tell me." I begged.

"I want Jacob back, alive. I want a baby. I want a husband who doesn't go away and leave me behind to worry."

I was formulating my answer, when she sat up suddenly.

"Shit, Edward. The research."

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Jake took part in that research into pure blood Quileutes. They took his blood, his skin scrapings and his sperm, Edward. They froze samples of his sperm."

My head spun. Surely she didn't intend...

"I am his legal wife. I could demand them to be returned. I could have Jake's baby." she exclaimed and ran inside , grabbing the phone.

I sighed as I listened to her talking excitedly to a flabbergasted Renee who was used to Bella's numb monotone, not this highly motivated girl.

She hung up and rang Billy and got the number and rang the Research Commission. She spoke quickly and paused to listen then argued endlessly, as only Bella can, and in the end, she came back outside and flopped beside me.

"They say I can fight for it, but it would take years, through the courts. Jake signed the rights over to them at the time. I can't win." She sounded defeated.

"I have money, you know." I reminded her.

"So?"

"Surely there is a quicker way? Someone who works there who's kid needs braces or a nose job."

"Bribery?" she tasted the word on her tongue and grinned again.

We talked over the feasibility with Carlisle and Jay Jenks, our family lawyer, to see the 'hypothetical situation' from all angles.

Carlisle warned us, they may destroy the samples to prevent Bella tying them up in court, we had to be careful. Once they were 'accidentally destroyed' they couldn't be salvaged.

Jenks was applying for a court order to protect the samples immediately, Carlisle advised us to do this legally. If we didn't win, then at least we would attract support for other widows fighting the system that prevented them having the right to inseminate after their husbands died. It had always been a mine field, as he was not there to give his permission.

As Bella said, if he was, she wouldn't need to be fighting to get a few lousy sperm samples back.

"Jake and I planned a honeymoon baby. I am getting the baby, even if I never got the honeymoon." she swore.

I was thrilled to see the old Bella come back to life as she argued her case to all who would listen and we returned to the real world when she had to appear in court.

I was immensely proud of her, standing up to the company but the best outcome would be them being forced to release the samples after they exhausted every avenue.

It would not happen for years, even if she won.

I panicked at the thought she would sink back into the black depression again but she said she was considering all her options, words that should have warned me.

I had visions of her breaking in, cutting wire fences with bolt cutters, her face blacked out against the rays of the moon.

"Edward, you could give me a baby." she said.


	7. Life Will Be A Lovefest

Forevermore

Chapter 7

Life Will Be A Lovefest

EDWARD

I wanted to think about this and negotiate terms. I was more than happy for Bella to have my child, but I wanted to use it as a leverage to get something I wanted.

"Okay, let's say we do this, is the child a Swan or a Cullen?" I asked.

"I guess as it will live with me, it will be a Swan. Why?"

"I was simply thinking, if we got married first..."

"No." she stated, hands on hips.

"Bella, think about it. It would be better for the baby." I tried.

"No, if we get married, it will be the day you finally decide, honestly, that you are never going back, not before. Not negotiable."

"Okay. Then let me have the balance of my five years and I will quit and stay home with you."

"I can use a sperm bank, or a donor." she answered.

"What do you mean? That's the same thing."

"Not necessarily. A few drinks in a pub or club, and plenty of men become willing to share their sperm with a girl." she snarked.

I wasn't going to win this.

"So, I donate my sperm to you and what? What happens then?"

She turned and climbed onto my knee, straddling me.

"We have a baby. You do do your good works overseas, I stay here, have my own place that you generously rent for me, and I raise the child. When the time comes that you are done with your travels, I promise to marry you without hesitation."

I thought it through.

She needed something to live for, and the boss was on my back constantly, calling my phone daily. But I wanted her to marry me before I agreed to impregnating her. I was firm about that one thing.

I knew what the calls were about.

I declined most of them but Bella answered my phone when I was in the shower.

"Edward, apparently your Boss has trying to catch you for weeks." she said, raising her eyebrows at me.

She was staying with me in our old apartment again, a step closer to us being back.

She didn't want us to rush into sex, we were still negotiating apparently.

I begged her shamelessly to get in some practice runs, using condoms, but she knew she held the power if she made me wait until we were trying for a baby.

I didn't know how much longer I could hold out, with her delicious scent hitting me every time I rolled over in bed.

I took the phone.

"Edward, The Flanders Corporation are offering a two million grant straight up and more to follow if you personally oversee the distribution of food and water and medicine." Lionel announced.

"What terms?" I asked.

"They want you there for six months."

I groaned. Bella would never agree to six months in one stretch.

She stood beside me and indicated she wanted to know.

"Just a sec, Lionel."

"They will give me two million dollars in aid if I go to a war zone for six months. Not on the front, back where they have long destroyed everything. I won't be in much danger. I just have to report all the good the money does, it may attract other large donations if I can get other companies wanting the publicity. It's the 'in' thing, being seen as charitable and caring." I explained.

"Do it." she said, and peeled off her top and bra as I tried to form whole words to Lionel. She dropped her jeans off and slid her lacy panties down and lifted them with a toe and offered them to me.

I grabbed the lace and clenched the panties in my hand.

"Fuck Lionel, call me back later. My blood supply has deserted my brain."

I slammed my cellphone shut and followed her to the bedroom, barely able to get my pants down over my eager dick.

Bella was lying on the bed, her back to me, stroking her breasts and singing quietly to herself as music played gently in the background.

I pounced on the bed and rolled her over.

"No wedding." she said.

I sighed and nuzzled her neck.

"No wedding." I agreed.

Just like that.

The one thing I wanted, off the table already.

Well, one of the two things I wanted.

The other was being offered to me on a plate.

"Edward. I have discontinued the Pill, and had two normal periods. Its about mid cycle. If you do this, the outcome is fairly likely a pregnancy." she stated clearly so there was no misunderstanding why we were in this bed together, naked. I had never understood why she went on the Pill after Jake died, it wasn't like she had let me make love to her. Maybe she didn't trust herself around me.

"I will name the baby your surname, seeing we will end up married one day." she offered.

I accepted.

"We will live together when you are here, and I promise to remain faithful when you are gone."

I didn't doubt her for a second.

"I agree, and I swear to remain faithful while I am away, well, all the time." I amended.

"You will support us both, and we may have more children in the future, before or after the wedding, whenever one of us wants to." she said, her eyes betraying she wanted this agreed most of all.

"Agreed." I said. I didn't want an only child, and if I worked for five more years, she would demand another baby before that ended.

"Time limit?" I asked.

"None." she answered, her voice wavering a little.

Okay, a massive concession on her part.

"Bella." I cried, holding her tightly. "thank you."

"Just get to it, Cullen. You don't get to leave until the pregnancy test is positive. Last rule."

"Fine." I said. I was sure I had so many sperm saved up I would be hitting the bulls eye any minute.

My dick had not been inside her for nearly two and a half fucking years. He was eager.

I slid a finger inside, and she was mercifully wet and ready and eager as I could not have handled stopping for foreplay. Though in many ways, we had been through months of that already.

Her undressing in front of me, walking out of the bathroom naked and wet, her body glistening with water from the shower or bath, God no, stop those images now.

I nudged her legs open wider and allowed myself to feel every single inch as I pushed inside her warmth.

"Fuuuccck."

"That's the idea." she answered, her voice husky, her body opening up to me.

I lay still when I was in deep and just let myself feel at home again at last.

Then I pulled out a little before pushing back in.

Bella's body remembered mine, and threw out the welcome mat and I crossed it over and over again.

My mouth found her nipples, hard as ice, and I tongued them then sucked one inside my mouth and shut my eyes as a thousand images of us, like this, hit me at once.

"Bella." I sobbed, scared this was too much, I was drowning in her.

"Shhh. It's okay now, we are back." she said into my ear.

I nodded and resumed the pace.

"I have always loved you, I only ever wanted you, nobody else, I need you so much." I heard myself say.

When had I turned into this pathetic, needy, desperate creature?

Two and a half years ago, my inner voice answered, the day she left you.

It was true, I hadn't felt alive since that day.

I needed her far more than she would ever know, or need me.

She had the courage to walk away, find Jake, move on.

I just let myself die inside and waited for her to come back.

"You can never leave me again." I cried out to her, holding her impossibly tighter.

"I won't, you have to always come back to me." she replied.

"I promise I will." I promised sincerely. Nothing would ever happen to keep me from her, I would make sure of that.

I needed to talk, needed the connection , needed it all, as my body glided in and out of hers, it was intense and so emotional I feared I was the girl here.

I wanted it to last forever, I never wanted to stop, to leave her warmth, to be out of her arms.

Like this, we were one entity, there was no beginning of her and ending of me, we were one.

"Bella, Bella, Bella."

I had waited, I was being rewarded but it was like the prize was too overpowering.

This was so much more than I remembered.

I had recalled the sex, the sensations, the need, the release even but the true meaning, the feeling of her being mine, me being hers, the unbreakable bond, it was all there, and I knew what I had risked losing before.

If she changed her mind, decided I could not go, fine.

I would stay, I cannot allow anything, anything ever, to come between us again.

I found tears running down my face again but this time, they were for Jake. He had died, never knowing what it was truly like to be the other half of Bella and while I selfishly was glad for me, it didn't stop me feeling devastated for him.

Even if they had slept together, I would have been able to claim her back, I cannot believe it could have been as much between them as it is between us.

There was no way anyone else felt like we did, or they wouldn't be able to function, get up in the mornings, go to work.

How could I stay away for six months?

I couldn't.

Bella started to moaning softly and I felt her body starting to shake slightly, and her muscles inside clenched around me, pulsing and vibrating, and I knew this round was ending. I let myself go, felt my seed leave me and enter her, but as much as I wanted to give her our baby, another part of me wanted it to take time, for us to be like this day and night, to have to try again and again.

I rested my forehead against hers and stared into her deep, brown eyes and smiled at her, ruefully.

Bella's eyes brimmed and overflowed with tears and I knew she was going through her own emotional journey as well.

She clutched at my body and held me in a death grip as she shuddered with her sobbing.

I withdrew from her and pulled her into my embrace and let her cry, sure some of the tears were my own, anyway.

"Edward." she sighed, unsteadily.

"I know." I answered.

She burst into a fresh round of sobbing and I waited her distress out, frantically wondering if she was crying for her loss of Jake, for the fact they never experienced this, the physical connection together, or what.

"How could I have ever left us?" she cried.

I knew what she meant.

It was more than just leaving me, it was trying to do the impossible, end us, what we were and always would be.

"You knew I would come back, didn't you?" she asked.

"I hoped, I just couldn't accept there was no us." I admitted. "Every time I tried to move on, I felt like I was betraying us. Like it was cheating. I almost had sex with some random woman once and just the idea almost killed me dead. I went home and couldn't sleep, all I could think was, I almost cheated on you. I woke up and ran to the bathroom and threw up." I admitted.

"I was so terrified the night...of my honeymoon. I was so scared I would not be able to let Jake..."

"We will never know." I answered, holding her tight.

I was glad, I never would have coped, seeing her pregnant with his child. I would have wanted to die. Assuming they were having sex had cut my heart like a knife but seeing proof, that would have killed me.

It was different now, if she did fight for Jacob's sperm and win, I would accept the child with open arms. Jake was no threat to me now. His child would give Baby Jake back to us, in a way we both wanted, and could handle.

I was glad she would be having my baby first, I wanted it so much, and it would happen. I would be away for much of the pregnancy, and I was sorry for that, but that way, I would be able to take the first year off after the baby was born. I could set this charity distribution up, and train others to do what I did, it wouldn't have to always be me myself.

I had to be here when Bella needed me.

I finally realized, she needed me more than they did, and they could be the one's to compromise, to fit in around us.

I would spend time here, with my family, with no guilt about the people who depended on my help, because Bella would always be the one I loved, and needed most, and I now see she needs me just as much. She can't just make a life without me in it, any more than I managed before. I felt pathetic and a shell but there was a valid reason for that. Without her, I was a shell, I was nothing. I was just a body waiting for it's soul to return.

"I don't know how I am going to live without you by my side when I have to leave this time." I admitted.

It had always been hard but I had been able to switch something in my head. There had been At Home Edward, who lived with Bella, and loved her and took solace in her arms and body when I was here, and Coming Home Edward, who went to war and coped, and did his job to the best of his ability because he knew she was there when he came home.

When she had left, I couldn't feel who I was any more. At Home Edward was the shell, with nothing to live for, Coming Home Edward didn't feel the pull to return nearly as badly.

I tried not to think of That Day but it pushed itself forward in my brain.

I had come so close... I had hoped to die that day.

I got off the plane, glad I had been saved from having to attend the wedding. There was no way I could have sat there and allowed it to happen. Writing the music, the story of Jake and Bella, it took me years...why? Because I broke down regularly and turned to the bottle to get me through it. She saw it as a beautiful tribute, I used it as a way to try to let go, to accept she was no longer mine, but I needed her to still have a good life, without me. I tried to express the love I saw in Jake's eyes, because I knew that love, it was in my eyes as well. I saw the love she had for him, but I always denied it was the same as the love she felt for me, and I am still convinced I was right. When she looked at him, there was love but there was a question as well.

A question that wasn't there when she looked at me.

There was never any doubt, any question.

I knew that in my soul.

How can you know that and watch her marry him?

Someone would have had to drag me away, and I would have fought them. I would have spoiled the whole day, Bella would never have been able to look back at her wedding like most brides do, and recall the happiness, the perfection, of the day.

It would have been the day Edward went insane. The day her ex, and I shudder that I was her ex, for that time, tried to ruin everything.

Instead, I was on the front line, reporting the latest deaths, stepping over bodies, organizing aid to be distributed, catching up with the latest areas devastated by this mindless fight.

I couldn't help myself, adding my best wishes to Bella. My companion, David, looked up as I unintentionally called her 'my' Bella, it was just the way it was.

She was my Bella. She could marry a hundred men and have a thousand children and it would never change.

I heard the shell behind me, and stood there, not diving for cover.

David's body hit mine and I fell down, cursing him.

What was one more death here, in this country of daily death tolls?

I crawled away and stood up, then turned away, hiding the dampness in my eyes.

"Spill." said David, standing beside me suddenly, his arm around my shoulders.

"We have work to do." I answered, my voice patchy and I wiped at my eyes.

"Hang on, Bella...not your Bella, not your angel who sits and waits?" he questioned. He and I had not worked together for a while now.

"She no longer waits." I answered, looking up at the sky that also was the same sky watching her marry Jake.

"What happened? Shit, Edward, she was your fucking everything."

I couldn't help myself and I looked at him and ignored the wetness on my face.

"She still is."

He drew in a breath and clapped my back.

"Fuck, man. You chose these people over her?" he asked, as the lineup pushed forward and we handed over bags of rice, bottles of water, fresh vegetables while it lasted.

The constant shelling was moving further away to the north, we were relatively safe now. Until the next attack.

"I thought I could have both." I answered. "I thought she would not go through with it, she would fucking know it was wrong what she was doing, I thought she was pushing me and testing my limits."

I smiled at a young girl, barely past childhood, her own baby on her hip.

I pulled a tin of powdered formula and a baby bottle from the boxes at our feet, and she grinned her thanks and put them in the bag she carried behind her back, the strap sitting over her head.

I added rice, carrots, yams, and bottled water, a double ration of it.

"You going to go get her back?" David asked.

Could I? Would I? Marrying Jake was a pretty damn clear message to me.

"I have no idea what I am going to do. I may just stay here permanently. There is plenty to do."

"Yes, but your talent is talking the rich and famous into having a conscience, anyone can hand out supplies." he said.

"It's not that simple. You talk money out of their wallets, they want to see it being spend correctly and not disappearing into Admin fees and salaries, they want their money to feed the hungry and they want proof."

"Any word on Flanders?"

I shook my head. We had been after their funds for years and they were willing but had so many terms and conditions, it would have been far easier to just forget them but they had resources few other companies had. They produced baby formula, powdered milk, tinned meat, medicines, if they donated in products, we got a hell of a lot more than a company who gave cash and we had to buy the foodstuffs.

Flanders could double our supplies.

The kids at the end of the line were the most heartbreaking. No parents, no adults willing to help them, they wandered along alone and just curled up and died if they didn't find a lineup to join.

I pulled out the special treats, the beef jerky, the few candies we were given, and added one of each to their ration. Gap toothed grins, decay caused by malnutrition and neglect having cost them their front teeth, greeted us.

"Hello Edward." said a boy of maybe seven at first glance.

"Tunafish, how are you, man." I answered in surprise. This kid was there the first time I started distributing, and I swear he was taller back then. That made him, what, 14 now? His body had stopped growing in self preservation at the long periods of little or no food intake over the years.

His parents were dead when he was about six or so, and he used to have his small brother on his back. The younger boy had his feet blasted in an attack, and couldn't walk but Tunafish carried him around, until the day the kid died.

Neither knew their names, shock or grief had hurt them mentally as well as physically, but this boy was a lover of any tinned fish, so we nicknamed him, and his brother we called Little Bear, as that was what he resembled, a baby bear on its mother's back, like a koala.

Not strictly a bear, but near enough.

Tunafish stopped talking after Little Bear died. The kid had no chance, his wounds had never been treated properly, at home he would have been amputated at the knees and had daily antibiotics, and a wheelchair, and his life would have been bearable. Out here, it was amazing if he got clean bandages once a month.

I had noticed David's shocked face when the boy greeted me. Maybe he still didn't talk.

"So, you been charming the ladies with your good looks?" I asked.

Tunafish chuckled and blushed and my heart hammered, God, was there no escape? Did every human, even here, have to remind me of her?

I handed him his rations and my own. I grabbed a packet of gum out of my pocket and handed it to him. The American soldiers sometimes gave the boys gum, they treasured it.

I hated it myself, but I always took my share for boys like this one.

He was last in line, and David came over and handed him his own half packet of gum as well.

Tunafish grinned.

He went to sit in the shade with the other kids. They were still happy, that was the amazing thing. Their bodies rivalled the idiot models at home who somehow thought bones poking through your skin was attractive, and they got shot at, saw their parents and family die, but put a group of these boys together and they would still joke around and tease each other.

Suddenly I remembered the promotional baseball cap that came with the Coke I grabbed before I got on the plane. It was cheaply made, a freebie worth every cent I paid for it, but I took it and put it on Tuna's head, covering his patchy hair.

A hat was a big deal out here, half the boys had caps of some kind. They treasured them more than their threadbare shorts. Now Tuna was attracting attention and he grinned as they teased him, and called him Coke Head.

No, I wanted to yell, Cokehead's are the rich boys who had way too much and chose to risk their lives with a hobby.

"Bella." I sighed. How could she make me choose? Moments like this, they were far more precious than getting some stupid award for selling the most cars or signing up the most insurance policies. I couldn't turn my back on my kids.

They got fewer year by year but I planned to follow them and make a documentary one day and show folks at home how even a small donation made a difference. A packet of gum, a free hat. This was equal to the Faberge egg in your crystal cabinet, just as treasured.

David and I packed up and he handed me half a sandwich and an apple and we sat with our backs against the wheels of the truck and ate lunch.

Our supplies were almost gone, we had to go back and restock, and it was there that I got Carlisle's message.

_Jacob's dead, Bella needs you._

I showed David and headed for the jeep, waiting to take me to the airport. I tossed David my backpack of clothing, he would hand the clothes out, give the bigger kids something to wear.

I never bought brands for their own sake, I bought the strongest, best made clothes so when I left, the men and boys would have something that would last a while.

They loved Tshirts with any writing on the front, didn't matter if it was an advertising logo, whatever.

The trip to the airport took a day, the trip home was tense and I tried to sleep, she would need me awake.

I gave in and asked for a drink, and downed three Bacardi and Cokes, knowing they would knock me out. I awoke as the sound of the engines changed as we landed.

I didn't stop to shower or change clothes and Renee looked a little wary of letting me inside.

I pushed past her impatiently, she can drop me into a bubblebath once I see Bella is okay.

Carlisle had collected me at the airport and he explained what happened.

It felt fucking weird, the boy who stole my girl was dead, I had to feel some relief at some level but all I could see was a little four year old with a half eaten earthworm in his mouth.

Baby Jake was gone.

I hadn't thought of him in that way for years, since he hit puberty and decided he wanted my girl as much as I did. He had become the enemy, the one to defeat. But he won in the end. Not that it did him much good. A bare two years, and for the most part, Bella had been very casual with him the whole first year. She never seemed to go out with him weekly even, it was more once or twice a month, and it made me think they would never progress, but the second year, they were together every time I came home. I hardly ever got to talk to her properly. She had coffee with me now and then, but mostly he came too.

But those images were disappearing, my annoyance with him was replaced by a deep distress, that little motherless boy of my childhood was who he was again now.

Bella had opened her eyes and said my name and that was all I needed. She needed me, I was there. I left her briefly to shower, and change into the Tshirt and jeans and clean boxers Carlisle brought with him for me, then I stayed in her room for days, just holding her, eating when required, making her eat.

So different , world's apart.

Making someone in a world of plenty eat, unlike my kids who ate grass and dirt if nothing else was available.

It always took me a while to change my head back but nowadays it didn't know who I was at home, so I made a new me, the me who was here for Bella.

xXx oOo XxX

Bella squealed and I knew without asking, we had hit the jackpot first month of trying. I was glad and sad, at the same time.

I had to get back, Flanders were starting to threaten to support a fucking home for retired racehorses instead, I needed to secure their money and get back out in the zone.

Setting up, organizing, it was vital, I had to be there at their insistence but they were not buying my soul, as soon as possible I would handover and get David or one of the others to step in and take over, and be the main man. I was happy with a supporting role that allowed me time off, and didn't require my constant presence.

Bella danced out of the bathroom, naked, and sat on my lap, showing me the pink smiley face on the plastic stick.

I grinned at her, and kissed her deeply.

"So, the face is pink, is it a girl?' I asked her.

"It had better be." she answered.

"Why? I thought you would like a son, seeing you were such a tomboy yourself." I questioned.

"Boys grow up into men who go to war." she said, and stood up, walking away.

She turned and smiled to show she was not changing her mind.

"I can promise you this, if it is a boy, and if he ever decides to go work in a war zone, I am going to shoot him in the foot." she said, her face deadly serious.

Our phone rang and I knew who it was immediately.

"Yes, Alice, it's positive." said Bella, grinning like she won the lottery.

The conversation turned to squeals even I could hear from my chair.

I had agreed to stay until the test was positive, I had to go, now. The sooner I left, the sooner I would be back.

Bella and I discussed it all last week.

Alice and Jasper were moving in, today by the sound of the conversation, until I came home.

I didn't want Bella alone for any of the pregnancy and I wanted daily updates. I would have access to a radio, most of the time, she was to at least leave a message and I would talk to her whenever I could.

The three of them would be househunting, I wanted us living in a proper family home before the baby was born. Bella could choose it without any restrictions from me, she would be there alone at times, a lot of times. She needed to be near the hospital, and doctor's, mainly my father, and near our friends. Alice and Jasper had delayed buying their own house until they found houses near each other that they all liked.

I felt left out, but that was the type of thing that happens when you are away as much as you are at home. I wanted to be back for at least the last 6 weeks of her pregnancy.

I knew 'six months' meant as long as they could force me to stay but I would be home for the birth.

Nothing would keep me away.

**A/N My husband is taking a rare 10 days off work starting later this week, our Friday night...I am naturally, unable to go cold turkey and stop writing for that length of time but I will only be updating ONE story in those ten days. Please review whichever one you want the most to continue...I hope it's this one! I suspect it will be Mrs Edward Cullen at Kynzi Rose tho! I will do whichever gets the most reviews. Sadly it includes my stories on my other users, Kynzi Rose and LynziAndTorisSecrets but you can read Tori's story there, she is excellent! (She nags me constantly to update my stories so I made her write with me, and also her own story, Heaven, Hell and Harley's.)**


	8. That's How It All Begins

Forevermore

Chapter 8

That's How It All Begins

Edward's POV

I sat on the plane, my eyes still wet, and left my RayBans in place. Better they think me pretentious than a crybaby. I tried to breathe normally, but the catch in my voice prevented me trying to speak. It has never been like this before, I have never allowed her to accompany me to the airport in the past but this time, I needed her with me as long as possible, and when we actually parted, I almost couldn't walk away. It felt like I was leaving half of me behind, I felt disorientated, wrong, and Bella's crying and attempts to cling to me made it all worse.

I made a decision. This will be my last trip, I have to think of a way to do what I love doing but based at home. I thought back to something David had said, about me being more useful conning the money out of the rich people. Maybe that would be my role in future. I could do that, I could suck up to people, show them my films, do the entire documentary this trip, and never go back. To be honest, did I want to be there the time Tunafish failed to show? When I had to accept he was most probably dead?

No, I would rather imagine him growing up, meeting a girl, getting out of the war zone, having a family maybe. Anything that saved his life and didn't make him a statistic that would mean little to anyone but us few that knew him.

David met me at the airport, jubilant I had secured the Flanders donation in the last hour, I had made some promises and would have to work my ass off but it would be worth it. Once the documentary was shown, and their name mentioned a few times, as our biggest sponsor, they would increase funding even more. I had asked Jasper to research the company for me so we could go with the angle that to American's, Flanders supplied us with useful products, in a war zone, those same products were the difference between life and death.

They would sound like the heroes, and who cares who gets the credit, without their donations there would be nothing to distribute. None of us here did it for the glory.

I explained my ideas to David and the others and we divided out the list of duties, we all had digital video cameras and we would all shoot whatever we thought would be usable to show the real story behind the war.

I sat down to a tin of beans and a bread roll, with David that night after we were done.

"I'm not coming back again." I stated.

He looked unsurprised.

"Bella." he said.

"It's more than that, but yeah, Bella. She is pregnant. To me."

"Wow, well done. Planned?"

"To the last detail. It's what she wants. But I can't leave her any more now. The baby will need me, she needs me, I need them. I can't keep risking their futures like this, simple fact."

"Did Bella force this onto you?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"That's part of it, she actually removed my five year limit, made it infinite. She loves me that much. She hates me being here, and it hurts her when I leave, and I know she will be stressed out as all hell all through the pregnancy, and that's bad. I just want to set things up, do the documentary, and go home. I am done. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is." I said.

"Edward, you know I lost my wife, I came here to forget, to do something with my life, what's left of it, but you are a young man and you are just starting out, I understand. I could not have left Susan when she was pregnant with our kids, and I wouldn't have come here at all if any of them had lived."

I shuddered, Susan had experienced a series of unexplained stillbirths, and they were childless.

Then she died. I asked him once what she died of, and he looked away and said "A broken heart."

I knew that was a real threat, people can and do die of broken hearts. I knew I probably would have, if Jake had lived and had a family with Bella and she had refused to leave him.

I would have had no reason to live, no reason not to drink and smoke myself to oblivion, not to take chances and become reckless and unsafe.

Maybe I wouldn't have died but I certainly wouldn't have lived.

David introduced me to the new men and one, Peter, came and sat with us.

His wife Charlotte was here as well, she was in the adjoining camp.

"Your wife ever come over?" he asked me, and I suddenly had the urge to vomit.

Bella? Here? Risking her life?

The epiphany hit me, this was how I made her feel every time.

I remembered how she used to lose weight while I was away, and I would get mad about it, now I understood. It was fear and stress that caused her to not eat. She had to relive the possibility each trip would be my last. I had never seen it through her eyes before, all I had to do was substitute her for me, and I saw and felt everything.

I wished I could go home, now, tonight.

I lay in my makeshift bed and all night, all I could think was what if the stress killed the baby? What if she miscarried or had a stillbirth because she never relaxed the entire nine months? I would be the cause, I would be it's killer. I was risking her love but also our child.

I had to cut this trip short, and get home as soon as possible. I even considered 'accidentally' shooting myself in the foot.

Nobody would question it, I was in a fucking war zone, people got shot here all the time.

I felt horrible the next morning, after maybe one hour's sleep, and David had to keep reminding me what I was doing.

"You are going nowhere today, you would be a fucking liability." he warned me.

I stayed behind and helped loading the trucks and sorting the rations into bundles to make distribution quicker and easier.

I was asleep that night before they even returned to base.

The next few weeks I worked as fast and hard as I could, and I learned to delegate. Anything someone else could do just as well as I could, I laid it off onto them and accepted their offers to help.

Peter was an accountant and he had worked in import/export, he was young, bright, healthy, he loved it here and his wife worked at his side.

He was the ideal candidate to take over from me. David would help him, he was my right hand man, he would work just as well with Peter.

I notified everyone who needed to know that this was my last trip and I explained who would take over which of my duties in future, and I took Peter to meet the reps from Flanders and talked him up, until he shone like the Second Coming in their eyes. I could see they loved the whole husband and wife team bit, it would be fine.

Official word came that Peter had been approved and I was out.

I called Bella and told her to warm my slippers, I would be right home!

"Um, Edward, you don't own slippers." she said with a laugh.

"Then buy me some and put them by the fire, so they will be cosy for me when I get home."

"I had a completely different idea about how to greet you and make you warm all over." she said, her voice lovely in it's huskiness. "it involved the fire, and the rug in front of the fire, and a lot of nakedness, but no slippers."

"Forget the slippers." I ordered.

She was five months pregnant and she sounded so happy, and it was me who made her that way. That was all the thrill I needed.

I packed and sorted, dropped most of my clothes into the bin for distributing and looked up with a smile as I heard the door open.

"Edward, are you sure you won't rethink. Another month, another week even, you could do so much."

Ah, Lionel himself, they are bringing in the heavy artillery.

"Sorry, one thing I have learnt this trip is how to get my priorities straight. If it were Bella doing this, coming here, and me at home with the baby, I would definitely want her to choose us. I am not a superhero, and others can be here and do what I do, simple fact, but nobody can replace me in Bella's life."

She tried, it didn't work out, but it was doomed to failure. Even if it hadn't ended the way it did, it would have ended. Our love would have trumped his, we would have killed him anyway.

I wasn't proud of that but maybe Jacob had been saved a worse hurt. Bella could never have stayed away from me in the end, she couldn't kill us, to save him.

I grabbed my bag with the few things I was taking home, my camera, the films the others had done. It was over.

"Visitor for you, Edward," said David, opening the door and leading Tunafish inside.

"Hello Edward." he said, and I grinned at him.

"Hey man, how is it going?"

"Are you leaving?" he asked.

"I am. My Bella is having a baby. I have to be a dad now, and look after him or her, like you looked after Little Bear. You understand, right?"

"You have to look after your family." he stated.

The boy knew the truth better than I did.

"I am still going to work and get more supplies and money for you all, and I won't ever forget you, Tunafish. Bella would adore you."

"You can't bring her here, it's not a good place." he stated.

"No, but the movie we made? I will show her that, she will see you, hear you talk. I am glad you are talking again."

"I only talk to you, Edward."

As I feared.

"Then do this for me, and talk to everyone, Tuna. There are a lot of people here who care about you. Do that for me. Talk to David, and Peter. You like Charlotte, right?"

"She's pretty. And she is nice, she gave me her gum."

"Then maybe you could give her something back, talk to her, okay?"

I high fived him and did the one armed manhug thing, then repeated it with Lionel, and David, and the rest.

I was going to miss them, and it would take me time a settle in back at home, but I have to do what's right, and at this moment, being with my Bella is the right thing.

Lionel, and Jerry, who had been injured and was being sent home, and I shared a jeep, and David dropped us at the airport, such as it was, and we started our journey homewards. The light plane took us to stage two, a proper airport and I booked in and dropped asleep the minute I was in my seat, before the plane even took off.

Pure exhaustion took over. I should have called Bella.

She will see me soon enough.

The plane took off as I slipped into slumber.

Ah, my old friend, Jake.

Nice to see you again.

This is the only way I get to spend time with him now, so I enjoy my dreams.

Things came to a head when Jake turned 16. He was not your average sixteen year old boy.

To start with, he now stood at six foor three, and was built like a gladiator. His hair was long, to his waist, shiny, straight, and black. He had always been a cute chubby faced kid but most of that was gone now. His face was longer and leaner and his eyes were intensely black and shone. His teeth were amazing. I mean, I am a guy and a straight one at that, but I can see beauty in all it's many forms and Jake was kind of beautiful. I knew I was good looking, I had grown up hearing it from everyone else's lips, so I was pretty self assured, and confident but when Jake turned up that day, maybe two years after I last saw him, I have to say I lost my usual cockiness and saw him as a contender.

We had gone as a group, to First Beach at LaPush, and Bella and the other girls were contemplating whether it was bikini weather or not. We were having an unusual run of sunny days, no rain, and the sky was blue, clear and cloudless. But it didn't mean you could mistake here for California by any means, it was shorts and Tshirt weather, but maybe not, sadly, bikini weather.

If there's one sight I love, it's Bella in a two piece. Her breasts have always been maybe a little larger than expected on her trim, slight figure, as were her hips. She was shapely, I guess is what I am trying to say. She curved in all the right places. However, as she mainly wore jeans and hoodies, one was not often privileged to see her attributes, so a bikini day was a special treat.

"I will keep you warm." I offered, as she debated whether the Tshirt was coming off or not.

I was voting for yes, a million times yes. Through the thin fabric of her top, her nipples were clearly erect and that was stirring things anyway.

"You swimming?" she asked and I shivered.

"Not likely, it is kind of cold.I didn't even bring anything to swim in. Not too cold for bikini sunbathing though," I hastily added.

I had turned 18 by then.

73 days and counting until she turns 18.

Wait, it's almost noon, so 72 days and twelve hours and 13 minutes.

A group of three men were approaching along the beach and I was shocked when they got closer and Bella called out a casual "Hey Jacob! You came!"

What? Did she invite Jacob?

I looked at the man nearest us, Holy Fuck, that was Jacob? Baby Jake? Shit, someone had been here with the steroid wand.

Suddenly my own slim but strong and firm slender frame just seemed scrawny and pale. I was glad I had left my Tshirt on.

Holy fucking Hell. When had he transformed from tall and gangly into this?

We had never really hung out together, he was Bella's friend, not mine really. She saw him regularly and often said Billy and Jake were coming over for dinner and so the men could watch a game on the flatscreen, and I knew she and Jake hung out in her bedroom those evenings, but fuck, I had pictured this KID, this youth with too long arms and legs, and still chubby face, like he had been last time I saw him, not this fucking beautiful MAN.

He grinned and his teeth were so fucking white I was blinded.

Oh Thanks God, even give him a smile that was affecting every female here. I looked at Alice and she blushed, thinking I had caught her checking him out, she looked away and then looked back.

Fuck, Alice, you are my sister, you should be on my side, could you at least close your mouth and not drool?

I gave her the 'I shall be reporting this little episode to Jasper' glare and looked back at Bella.

Who was standing, and tossing her shirt onto our blanket, as Jake grabbed her in a bearhug.

Was this acceptable behaviour? She has a boyfriend. Right here, remember me?

"Come on, Paleface, I brought the board, I shall have you standing upright today. You are doing so well, it's just a matter of confidence, hey Edward?" he at least acknowledged I existed.

"Huh?"

"Confidence, that's all it takes, right? To succeed?" he said.

"Uh, yeah." I agreed, my own confidence level had plummeted.

Bella fought back weakly as he dragged her to the waters edge and I sat there, stunned.

Fucking hell.

Jake.

Baby Jake.

I snorted.

That was like calling Marilyn Monroe the girl next door.

I shook my head.

Jake had her on his back, like she was a fucking lightweight backpack and she was grabbing his shoulders and he scooped his surfboard up and ran into the waves.

Bella was screaming and shaking as the cold hit her, but Jake unceremoniously dumped her off his back under the water, then scooped her up again.

It was like watching some well built father with a child, the way he tossed her around. She was straddled on the board and he was walking beside it, pushing it out into the deeper water, while she giggled and twisted her long wet hair, squeezing the water out, back into the ocean.

Emmett was at the waterline with his kid, digging wet sand for sandcastles, and he stopped and watched them, then jogged back up to where I sat and plopped beside me, keeping his eyes on Ronan.

"Fuck, man. That's the new, improved Jacob Black?" he asked.

"Looks that way," I answered, pushing my Raybans back up my nose.

"Fuck me." he said, summing the whole situation up in two words.

"I think if anyone's fucked, it may be me." I pointed out.

"I need to take some advice back, Bro. Get her home and fuck the living daylights out of her, forget the eighteen rule, you need to show her who she belongs to, and now."

I watched them jumping about in the waves, Jake grabbing Bella at every opportunity when she fell off the board, under water, he scooped her up like Emmett did Ronan.

Suddenly a thought hit me.

"Emmett, remember my birthday?"

"Yeah, Death Squad 2000, Zombie Massacre, I wiped the floor wth you!"

"Yeah, think about it. You and Rose bought me a couple of games for my XBox, and Bella and I had intended going to the movies to see that stupid chickflick she was talking about all week, The Notebook, after the obligatory family dinner. What happened?"

"You and I got down to some serious killing and you..."

"I said to Bella.." I prompted.

"Why don't you ring Jake and see if he will take you."

"I did."

"You did."

We sat in silence for a full minute.

"I sent my seriously horny girlfriend, who has pestered me to sleep with her for years now, out to a dark cinema, to watch a fucking movie where the main characters die, thus putting said girlfriend in the vulnerable, needy, sad mood, that many men have taken advantage of, and offered a little comfort and soothing."

Emmett shook his head.

"Emmett, please direct me to where I collect my award for Stupidest Fucking Boyfriend on the Planet, because I totally earned that sucker."

"You did. No doubt. about that."

I had thought I was sending her out with like the male version of Alice or Jessica, not a movie fucking star.

"You going to intervene, tell her to get her pretty ass back here with you?" asked Emmett.

"Yeah, because that would win me the World's Biggest Douchebag Award as well, and we know I am a serious contender. They have been friends forever, she hangs out with him like one night a week, and every Saturday morning so I can sleep in. Because we all know sleep is more important than keeping your girlfriend away from the serious competition." I groaned.

"You really need to fuck her." repeated Emmett.

He told me to watch Ronan and walked to his car , opening the door and reaching around inside, then he came back, handing me a stack of small, silver packets.

I stashed them in my pocket, and looked at him.

"Desperate times, Edward."

Bella finally finished her surfboarding lesson, and ran up the beach, having escaped Jake's clutches, but not before he lifted her off the sand and kissed her loudly on the lips.

"I demand payment, remember, one lesson, one kiss, pay up Swan." he had laughed.

I choked as I watched, but Bella was laughing. It was, I guess, a chaste enough kiss, but I could see his eyes, she couldn't. It may be a fun, friendly kiss to her, but to him, it was that kiss you can get away with by acting like it meant nothing. But it meant a lot to him. He narrowed his eyes and watched her run to me, and he lightly licked his own lips, tasting her, tasting where her lips had been on his.

I tried to act like any reasonable boyfriend who had watched his girl have some innocent fun with some friend, but I was shaking internally.

Jake caught my eye and smiled, and tipped his head back slightly.

He was declaring himself, warning me the rules had changed, we were not battling over who sat beside Bella at the craft table or who gave her the better birthday gift.

Things had seriously changed.

The age difference was irrelevant, he had grown into a man, and he worked for a living outside school, he was more of a grown up than I was.

Bella chatted on about her lack of co-ordination and how Jake would have to give her lessons forever before she got the hang of it, and I cringed.

"Come on, you said nobody's home at yours?" I asked.

I grabbed her hand and picked up the towels.

She pulled her Tshirt on, a bit bloody late for that, we had all seen and enjoyed the view for the last two hours, Mike looked like he was seriously going to come in his pants, and I led her to my car.

We waved to everyone and I didn't miss the "Later, Jake, see you at dinner tonight." she yelled to him, or the smirk he gave me as he waved to her.

Shit.

How to nip this in the bud and not be too fucking obvious about the big green monster that was taunting me as much as Jake was.

"Where's Renee?" I checked again.

"Out at her new job. God knows what use my mother is to a baseball team but they pay her to do something and I assume she does it satisfactorily. They haven't kicked her out yet. It's like her dream job. All those years of minding everyone else's kids, she said she needed a proper, grown up job, and Phil told her about this one."

I still couldn't understand Charlie's whole attitude toward Phil Dwyer. Renee was like some rabid teenage fangirl around him yet Charlie thought it was fine to let her work with him? It was asking for trouble if you ask me.

He may be younger, but Renee was a permanent teen at heart, she probably saw Phil as the older of the two of them. Sometimes age is irrelevant.

Look at Jacob Black...

I fucking should have looked at Jacob long before today and done something...I don't have any idea what. I had been as clueless as Charlie.

I trusted Bella but fuck...

I wasn't the most attentive boyfriend, I did blow her off sometimes when Emmett and I were into male bonding shit or I didn't want to see some chickflick she was keen to watch. I had sent her to Jake quite often, I now realized.

Him, I didn't trust an inch, not any more.

Bella unlocked the front door and I closed and locked it behind us.

I guess all I can do is fight fire with fire.

Emmett's right.

I need to make my claim crystal clear and make sure she is always thinking of me, no matter who she is with.

I walked into the bathroom as she washed her hair under the shower, and I stripped my own clothes off, and stepped in behind her.

I felt kind of nervous, this wasn't how I had planned our first time to be, but needs must.

"What are you doing, you didn't even get wet."

No, I didn't but did she?

I find it hard to believe she does not look at Jake now and fail to see the obvious.

Another man who loves and wants her, and would do anything to achieve his goal.

I soaped my hands and stood behind her, sliding them over her breasts, and she stopped talking and leaned back against me.

I spun her around and caught her mouth in mine and kissed her with all I had.

She finally jerked back and gasped for air.

"What's going on?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at me.

"I thought maybe it was time." I said.

"Time? You mean..?"

"Yeah, we have waited long enough, don't you think?"

"But your dad just put me on the Pill. It won't even work yet." she answered.

I led her to her bedroom and locked the door, then pinned her against the wall and kissed her, rubbing my body against hers so she could feel my hard-on.

"I have condoms." I whispered.

"Really?" she squeaked in surprise.

I kissed her again and walked us to her bed, and lay her down, pulling her towel away and dropping my own shorts to the floor, and started pulling off my boxers so my dick was free and she grabbed it.

"Can I put it on?" she asked.

She may as well, I had never done it.

I ripped the packet open and handed it to her, and she giggled as she shook the rubber free and started rolling it on me.

Then she stopped and frowned.

Shit.

"Why now? Why today?"

"Why not?' I said, bending to nuzzle her neck, and playfully nipping her earlobe.

She shook me off.

"Edward, you have made me wait two years. I begged you to make love to me the day I turned sixteen. I have asked you numerous times since and it's always 'remember our promise, I don't want to risk hurting you, Bella, we can wait, Bella.' You made me feel like I was asking for something that was too sacred to hurry. Now, a random day when we are almost there, suddenly the rules have changed?"

"You always hated rules," I said.

"No, that's not it. What is going on?"

I sighed and sat beside her on the bed.

"I just feel the need to...connect more with you."

"We are connected, we have always been connected."

"Not completely. Not as man and woman. Swans mate for life, did you know that? I want to mate with my swan, and keep her for life."

"It seems kind of caveman claiming your woman...Edward, is this about Jake?"

"Jake? Why would it be?" I faked.

"I saw the way you were looking at him. Don't you trust me with him now?"

"I haven't seen Jake in quite a while." I deadpanned.

"So? He is still Jake."

"Are you telling me you can't see how grown up he is, suddenly? He is a man, Bella, a fully fledged man, and he wants you."

"I know. But I want you, not him. He is just a friend."

"Yeah," I snorted. "And Angelina Jolie is just a neighbor."

"What? Angelina Jolie? What has she got to do with this?"

"If she moved in next door to me, would you trust me, and accept she was just a neighbor?" I smirked.

"Yes, I would, if you told me that's all she was."

"Well, more fool you. " I snarked.

"So, is this about me and Jake, or you wanting to sleep with Angelina Jolie?" she asked, standing up and shaking me off as she headed for her closet and pulled on a tshirt and then pulled her panties and jeans from a drawer and put them on, her eyes flashing dangerously.

I unrolled the condom and shoved it in my jeans pocket as I redressed.

"Bella, I'm sorry, I just.."

"Don't trust me with Jake. You think because you won't sleep with me I will go find a substitute."

"No, I don't. It just seems kind of silly, taking the risk." I said.

"There was no risk. I never see Jake like that. He is my friend." she stated loudly.

"Bella, wake up, he is a man who wants to fuck you. Don't even tell me he hasn't tried anything?"

"Of course he has, Edward. I know he is a man and I also know he would never do anything I didn't want him to do. He has joked around about us being a couple, about dating, trying to see if we can be something, but I always assumed that would be wrong, because I love you. But now I find out, if Angelina Jolie moved in next door, you would be fucking her, even though you won't fuck me... I think you had better go."

"Bella, don't be like this. Jake is a man, a beautiful one at that..."

"I can see that now. Isn't that strange, he has always been 'Just Jake' to me, I have never stood back and looked at him as a man, and a contender, thanks for opening my eyes up to that fact. He is kind of beautiful now you mention it. And he is built, I did notice that. No wonder Alice couldn't tear her eyes away, now I can see what you two were seeing. I will check him out properly at dinner tonight."

She walked out of her bedroom and marched downstairs and started preparing the ingredients for their meal.

Her body language said 'stay away' quite clearly, but I didn't want to go and leave things like this. We had never fought before, I had no idea what to do, how to fix things. I didn't want her being in her bedroom with him, all evening, after this.

Talk about sabotaging your own relationship. I was an ass. I should have trusted her. She had never done anything to make me doubt her.

I walked up behind her and put my hands around her waist and rested my cheek against her back.

"Come out with me tonight? Please? We can go see some girlie movie, go to dinner, anything you want."

"Oh, so suddenly you like me enough to actually take me to movies I want to see?" she snarked.

"I guess you won't be telling me to go play with Jake anymore when you haven't got time for me?"

Shit. This was not going well at all.

"I'm sorry, I have neglected you and not put you first, and I should have. I do trust you, I am sorry I said all that stuff. I love you, Bella."

"You can't use that as your excuse, Edward. Love takes effort and you have not been putting any in lately. All you seem to care about is getting to my birthday and having sex with me before someone else does, it seems. I am seriously asking you for a bit of time and space to think about today."

"No, you are not breaking up with me." I stated, grabbing her hands.

"I didn't say that, I just need to really think about if this is still what I want. You have made me consider things I never thought about before."

"You mean Jake, don't you?" I accused her.

"It's more than that, we have never dated anyone else, you and me. I never thought we needed to."

"But now you do?"

"Maybe, I don't know."

I raked my hand through my hair.

"Just go, Edward. I will talk to you at school tomorrow."

I knew anything else I said would only widen the gap so I kissed her forehead and held her close for a minute, then turned and left.

I was an A grade fool, she had never seen Jake as a contender, and now I had pointed out he was one indeed and she was considering her options.

Shit, he thought he was going to have to fight me for her, I was handing her to him on a plate!

I got in my car and drove around mindlessly.

How the fuck had this happened? It wasn't like she was flirting with some stranger, or even flirted with Jake. She was completely open about her friendship with him and she just acted today as she always had with him, in front of me, she wasn't taunting me. She had trusted me to trust her. She was being open, honest, not feeling she needed to hide from me, now even if she stayed with me, she would never share what she and Jake did again. I had pushed him into another category, and made her think she had to conceal him from me now.

I hoped Emmett had collected my douchebag award for me because I totally deserved it as well now.

I drove home and went straight to my bedroom, and played some dark, emo music and surprised myself by crying for the first time in so long, I couldn't even put a date on the last time.

That evening was one of the worst of my life. I tried to distract myself but all I could think about was, maybe I had lost her already, maybe she was looking at Jake differently now, maybe he was kissing her properly, without the jokes and payment plan.

The next day I almost didn't go to school but my mother kicked me out of bed and forced me to eat breakfast and told me she would be checking to make sure I turned up in class, so I gave up and went to school, parking beside Bella as usual, and walking alone to my first lesson. I wasn't in any classes Bella was in as well until after lunch so I had no clue, was I supposed to still get her food, sit with her?

She was sitting with Alice and their heads were touching as my sister no doubt heard every detail of my stupidity. Alice gave me an incredulous look, then her face changed, to one of pity and I knew my goose was cooked.

I walked desolately into Biology and wondered if Bella would even sit at my table or if she would ask to be reassigned a new seat.

She walked into the room and looked up at our table. I smiled weakly at her and she walked up and sat in her usual chair, but made no attempt to push our chairs together as closely as possible as she usually did, and she faced the front and took notes, even let her hair fall forward so it hid her face from me.

I had never felt so lost.

Jessica Stanley turned and looked at us, and smirked. She tapped on Lauren's shoulder, and Lauren looked and realized what was happening, and she winked at me and pushed her pathetic newly bought rack out further and spent the entire lesson eying me off in an obvious way.

I had never 'been available', I guess word was getting around, but I felt no joy in knowing there were plenty of girls who wanted me. I only wanted Bella.

After school I sat in my car and watched everyone else leave, until my car and Bella's were all that were left. She came running out , cellphone glued to her ear as she tossed her bag in the seat and got in.

I smiled at her and she gave me a hurried wave and drove out, and headed for home.

I guess that was the point of my life when I found out what 'lonely' truly meant and also found out, you can be surrounded by other people and still be lonely, if they are not the person you want to be with.

I woke up, and listened to the plane engines change as we landed.

That's how I had been making Bella feel every time I went away.

I assumed because she had Alice and Jasper, and Charlie, and my parents, that she was well supplied with people, and could cope, and I had even got a little impatient with her not eating properly while I was away.

Now I remembered lonely, and knew I would never let her feel that way again.


	9. Oh Playmate Come Out And Play With Me

Forevermore

Chapter 9

Say, Say, Oh Playmate,Come Out and Play With Me

BELLA's POV

I lay in bed, the baby kicking madly, keeping me awake. Alice had checked on me and finally gone to bed. Hopefully she and Jasper will move into their own house tomorrow when Edward comes home.

I missed him so much and he hadn't felt the baby kick yet.

I refused to let anyone touch my belly, because it was Edward's baby and he needed to be first.

Sleep kept escaping, and I tried to empty my excited mind.

For some reason, I was remembering the first fight Edward and I ever had , over Jake of all people.

I had noticed his growth spurt but I was with him twice a week at least so his metamorphosis was not a sudden, overnight thing. I watched his face mature and change and his body grow taller, and his limbs start to fit and match the rest of him. I was often over at his place at the Res while he worked out on the gym equipment Harry Clearwater had bought when the doctor told him he had bad cholesterol and was in high risk category for a heart attack.

Of course, the doctor had not added, "Don't go buy a full set of gym gear and work out like a healthy young man for four hours a day." so Harry did that, and died of a massive coronary the first night.

He had already set the equipment up in secret, away from Sue, in Jake's garage,so after Sue found her husband dead in bed the next morning, Jake got to keep everything by default.

He hadn't known what Harry was doing could be a really stupid idea, as Harry assured him it was what the doctor had ordered him to do. Sue insisted Jake keep the equipment and Jake made use of everything to get himself buff.

I had laughed at him at first, scrawny old Jake, all arms and legs, he did have broad shoulders though so I guess I should have known he had the potential to be bigger. But even so, I would never have imagined him getting this much larger.

I noticed when he and I walked along the beach on Saturday mornings, while Edward slept in, that a lot of girls were starting to look Jake's way and he did, too. I chuckled to myself when one day, he decided to give the girls a thrill, and he stopped and raised one foot and rested it on a fallen log. His calf muscles were huge. He eased his black fitted Tshirt up over his head and pulled it off, slowly, for maximum effect and I laughed at him.

"What?" he said, feigning innocence.

He flexed his back and shoulders and I heard sighs and gasps as the teen girls on the beach watched openly.

"You should get a job in a stripjoint, you did that so well." I joked."You impressed so many girls."

"Did I impress you?" he asked, reaching over and tidying my hair to behind my ear.

"Sure, Jake, you impressed me. You know steroids are bad, right?"

He picked me up and threw me over his shoulder and ran along the beach as I squealed and swatted at his back, uselessly.

He dropped me onto the sand and sat beside me.

"You were there from day one, did I ever take a single steroid...shit, I don't even know, are they tablets? Injections?"

"Okay, okay, you didn't do anything to seriously shrink your balls." I admitted.

"What?" he asked.

"When you use steroids, they make your balls shrink into little hard raisins. It's a well known side effect." I explained.

"Do you want to check mine?" he said, his face and voice serious.

"Jake, you idiot." I laughed and swatted at his broad shoulders.

"No, I would be an idiot if I had used steroids and had shrunken my balls. I don't get it, why would you do that? I thought the idea was to build yourself up so you got the ladies attention, but if you couldn't follow through, what would be the point?"

"I don't know." I frowned. "maybe body builders are gay?"

"Don't they still need their balls to , you know, get it up?"

"Gee Jake, next time I run into someone without balls, I shall ask him that question for you."

I lay back and flicked my hair out so it lay flat on the sand above my head.

"You look like a sand angel." he said, leaning over me, gazing at my lips.

He licked his own, and I looked at him seriously.

What did I honestly think of Jake? Edward had started something, yesterday and now I was thinking a whole new different way.

I blushed and shut my eyes and felt his lips seek mine.

xXx

Dinner had been embarrassing. I kept looking at Jake, then thinking of Edward, and getting angry and Jake was laughing at me.

Charlie asked me to pass the mashed potatoes just as I was rehearing Edward accusing me of fancying Jake in my head and I thumped the bowl down the table beside Dad.

"Okay, no more potatoes for me. If you think I am getting pudgy you can just say so."

"Sorry, dad, I was thinking of something else. Have some potatoes."

I was glad when the game started and he and Billy stopped looking warily at me, and moved into the sitting room.

Jake helped me clear the table and I took my frustrations out on the dishes as I washed those suckers cleaner than ever before and banged them into the dish drainer.

"Whoa, Bells, you are going to break them." Jake warned me.

He grinned and smiled secretly to himself, clearly quite self satisfied and pleased about something.

After kitchen duty and handing out some cold beers to the men, Jake and I went upstairs and for the first time ever, I felt a bit strange as he lay across my bed. I sat at my desk and he looked up.

"Why aren't you sitting on the bed with me?"

"It's something Edward said. About you being a man." I started.

"It's the long hair, he thought I was a girl, right?" he joked.

I loved his long hair and I moved and sat beside him and stroked it.

"No, but why have you never cut it? Sam and Seth and the other boys all have really short hair now." I observed.

"Maybe because you never told them you loved their hair long." he suggested.

I blinked.

"You haven't cut your hair because of me? Jake, you should do whatever you want with it. You know I am with Edward and despite his ridiculous tantrum, I will be back with him this week."

"Mmmm" he said, stroking my own hair.

I flipped it back over my shoulders and stopped touching his.

"Tell me about Edward's tantrum." he suggested.

"He doesn't trust us, which is ridiculous, right?"

"Right." he murmured, taking my hand and holding it against his cheek.

"Jake, stop it." I yelled.

He laughed and sat up.

"It is totally ridiculous. There is nothing between us at all. We are just friends and that is all we will ever be." he finished.

I nodded.

"Then why can't Edward see that?" I asked.

"I don't know. Gee, we could even kiss and it wouldn't mean a thing." he said.

"We do kiss already." I corrected him.

"That's not kissing, that's payment." he said.

"I kiss you in payment for the boarding lessons, it's kissing." I protested.

"No, this is kissing." he said, and pulled me onto his lap and grazed his lips against mine.

I kissed him back, like he said, it meant nothing.

His tongue stroked across my lips and I frowned and tried to back away.

He let me go instantly.

"Why did you do that?" I asked him.

"I just wanted to prove we can kiss properly and it won't mean a thing." he said.

I looked into his eyes.

He seemed sincere.

"Okay, Jake, do your best but it truly means nothing, right?"

"Right." he murmured and cupped my chin.

His lips were gentle at first and I was almost bored, then he suddenly pushed his tongue inside my mouth and started rolling it around my own. Edward kissed me like this all the time, but when he did it, it had meaning.

I let Jake play all he wanted and suddenly I stiffened.

Shit.

No.

Shit.

I was feeling something, not strange or different, just I had only felt that area ever respond to Edward's kiss.

I shifted uncomfortably.

Jake grinned against my mouth and dove his tongue back in and I met his this time and we battled for dominance.

I sank back on the bed when he stopped, and gasped for breath.

"See, nothing at all." he said, and dropped me flat onto the bed. He got up and sat at my desk, booting up my computer.

I sat and glared at him as he showed me stupid shit online, stupid cats dancing and singing, silly stuff, and he kept looking at me and laughing quietly.

My face was flushed and my ladies bits would not settle down.

This was just a natural reaction, it didn't mean I had any ...adult...feelings for Jake.

He kissed me chastely when he left to take Billy home and I found myself lingering for a little longer than I should have. He pushed me back gently and walked out.

I felt completely confused as I lay in bed. I loved Edward, I had loved him since I was six years old. This whole thing with Jake, it was weird. It was like he was the new man in town and we had just met. I growled at myself and shook my head clear.

I love Edward. I do not love Jake. Not at all. My fingers touched my lips and lingered there, remembering Jake's kiss. The real kiss. My lips still tingled, all this time later.

Sleep was usually my respite but that night, it was my tormentor.

That was the first night I dreamed about Jacob Black.

xXx

I was standing at the beach, and Jake was standing beside me. I help my hands out and he took them. Suddenly I realized, I had aged, but he had not. I was maybe 40, he was a teenager again.

"You don't know how long I have waited for you."

Things morphed.

I was standing at the start of the aisle and Edward was standing at the front, waiting for me. He had a tux on, and he looked phenomenal. I was on Charlie's arm, and I had tears of joy coursing down my face, as I watched Edward watching me. He was smiling like this was the best moment ever in time.

It was so real, and so beautiful, I could feel my heart racing in my chest and I knew this was how it was meant to be.

The clergy or whoever was saying stuff but he got the name wrong, he said to Edward

"Repeat after me. I, Jacob William Black, take Isabella Marie Swan, to be my lawfully wedded wife..."

I tried to correct him but I couldn't speak.

Edward stepped back and Jake took his place, smiling at me broadly.

I looked at dad and he smiled, and moved in slow motion, like he was underwater.

"Jake is the safe choice." he said.

Renee was there, with Phil? Whatever, they both smiled, and assured me it was all fine.

I was looking around, Alice was measuring people in the crowd with a sewing tape and telling them what would suit them better than what they had on.

Emmett was sitting on the beach, which was at the end of our yard for some reason.

He was building sand castles and the sea was washing them away but he kept building more.

"Jacob's the safe choice." he said, grinning at me.

I sat up with a start.

Why was Jacob any safer than Edward? Why was Edward letting it happen? I didn't want to marry Jake but Edward didn't do anything to stop it happening.

I fell asleep again.

It was Christmas morning and Edward was sitting under our tree, and we had children, but they were hazy and out of focus. I could see them out of the corner of my eye but when I looked straight at them, they were just a blur.

Edward kissed me and handed me a really big wrapped box and I opened it, and inside was a tiny test tube. I looked inside the test tube and I could see Baby Jake, he was playing on the grass, and he toddled into the dirt. I smiled and watched this video-like film, and he picked up a worm and ate it.

"No" I screamed. "It will kill him. Don't let Jake die."

I sat and shook for quite a while after that.

I was soaked in sweat and very disturbed, things were not right.

At school I didn't speak to Edward, I was still weirded out. Alice made me tell her what was going on but all I got from her was "Edward's an idiot." which didn't help.

I rang Mom at work after I spent an hour after school reading through books in the school library about the meanings of dreams. It seemed my universe was out of kilter.

I was surprised to see Edward sitting in his car, everyone else was gone.

Renee was telling me what to begin for dinner, and I was about to cut her off when she added she was working late tonight.

The team were not even in town, what did she mean?

"Phil Dwyer is injured, nothing serious, so he didn't go with them this time, he is mentoring me so I get a better idea of the game and the players and...stuff like that, baseball stuff, you wouldn't understand.."

I wouldn't understand and she would?

Renee was a fan but she never understood the rules of the game even. Charlie would cringe if she sat in the sitting room with him,asking him a million questions as the game progressed.

He bought her a tv of her own and sent her to watch upstairs in their bedroom by herself when Billy or the other guys came over to watch.

If I sat and watched with her, I heard about every hit or strike Phil Dwyer had ever made, and how undervalued he was, because clearly he was the best player the team had, he had huge potential. He would go far and then they would be sorry they hadn't showcased him, and used him more often. Having him sit out any game was wrong and ridiculous and based on the other players jealousy that Phil was so amazing.

Yeah.

Like being surrounded constantly by professional players and trainers was not enough for them to spot your brilliance. I personally thought he was headed for a short career then would wind up training kids at camp, something like that was more his speed, you never heard anyone else even mention him after a game.

Charlie sometimes said he had no idea why they hadn't dumped Phil ages ago, but that's the opposite to Renee's opinion.

"Mom, what's going on?" I asked.

"Nothing, Bella, don't be ridiculous. Just get dinner started and I will be home as soon as I can be. What time does Charlie's shift end, again?"

"He finishes at nine tonight." I answered, knowing it was a lie, he was on until midnight. I just wanted to see what time Renee would arrive home now I had told her that information.

Why was I feeling like the parent, trying to trap my teenage daughter in a lie?

I was starting to worry what all this meant, something was up, and it bothered me.

I saw Edward but he didn't attempt to leave his car or even open the window to speak, so I just waved at him and headed home.

As I peeled and grated and chopped, I tried to work out what was going to happen from this point on.

Did I want to make up again with Edward?

Definitely.

I had to fix things, I didn't want Jake kissing me like that.

I wanted to talk to Edward about it.

That night I sat in my bedroom, in the dark, afraid to go to sleep again.

I heard a stone hit my window and ignored it, because I suspected Jake had taken my lack of resistance as a "GO" sign.

Another stone, and I got up and opened my window, ready to hiss at him to go home. Edward was sitting in the apple tree and I pulled him inside and into my bed without a word.

He lay with me in his arms and kissed the top of my head.

"I'm so sorry, Bella. I do trust you." he said.

"Don't. I let Jake kiss me." I admitted.

He stopped breathing for a minute, his body stiff and cold.

Then he stroked my back and kissed me again.

"I dare say that was my fault. Do you love him?"

"Edward, I love you."

"I think you do love him a little bit, Bella."

I sighed.

"Maybe I do, but I love you more."

"Good." he said and lay his cheek against my head.

"I'm not going to marry him." I heard myself say as I fell asleep in the right arms.

But I did, I had married Jake. Now the dreams made some sense, years later.

I knew what I wanted when I married Jake, I wanted Edward to stop the wedding.

Not necessarily at the wedding, but I had wanted him to come to me and tell me I couldn't marry Jake and he had not done that.

I wondered why, really. Sure, he was reassigned, but would the war have ground to a halt if he had refused to be diverted?

I had wanted him to be my white knight.

Maybe he was just a person, just like me, a person who tried to do the right thing but made mistakes along the way.

I slept soundly and awoke when a pair of familiar and right arms surrounded my body and held me close to his.

It was pitch black, and I snuggled against him.

"Edward." I sighed."Welcome home."

"I'm not going back. Not ever, I mean it. I understand now." he whispered.

All felt right with the world again

I felt the baby kick and pulled Edward's hand onto that part of my belly so he could feel his child inside me.

"Bella, I love you." he said, rubbing at the place the baby's feet were, making it kick him again.

"I know."

He was here,wasn't he? He wasn't going back.

xXx

EDWARD

The second hearing for Bella's attempt to plea for the return of Jake's cryogenicaly frozen sperm was pushed up so she had to go to court in a state of advanced pregnancy but she refused to consider it may weaken her case. The pregnancy clearly said "I have moved on" and I worried the whole thing was too stressful, we were trying to reduce the stress in our lives, not add to it.

While I waited for her , I chatted with other men sitting waiting and found out several were filing to expedite overseas adoptions. I listened, wondering if Tunafish would be a candidate for adoption. We could easily afford a dozen kids and so I enquired and found out, as he was an orphan of war, it may be possible.

I rang Jenks and told him to look into it for me.

Bella was pleased that the judge clearly would decide in her favor, it was now up to the other side to decide if they wanted to keep fighting her. He had asked me for my side of the story, so I was to go in after the lunch break and explain our special circumstances.

I told Bella of my hope maybe we could adopt Tunafish and she was enthusiastic about getting him over here.

The judge was quite interested in my point of view.

"So, you and Ms Black plan to marry?"

"We do , we were waiting for a proper length of time between her marriage to Jacob and also, she didn't want to marry me while I was working overseas in war zones. She was afraid of becoming a widow again."

"What work did you do?" he asked.

"Initially, I was working fully as a war correspondent but I sort of drifted into working in organizing and distributing food and aid from the Red Cross as well."

"Mr Cullen, how do you feel about raising a child from your wife's first husband?" he asked.

"Bella knew Jake from the day he was born. I knew him from when I was six and he was four. He was a big part of our lives and we miss him. I would have helped her raise any children she had already had with him, had they had kids before he was killed, so I don't see this is very different."

"But this is a planned pregnancy in the midst of you two creating your own family."

"We also hope to adopt an orphan I have known for a few years now from a war zone." I added.

"So, you will have three children from three different lots of parents?"

"I don't see that is a problem, if we love them all equally. Tunafish is a teenager, we both want to give him a chance to have a better life, he won't be dependant like a baby. He in fact, looked after his injured brother for years until that child died. I see him as an almost independent teen who just needs a chance of an education and a safe place to live."

"Is that all the family you plan to have?"

"I think we will have several children together, plus Jake's child, plus hopefully Tunafish. I am just starting to proceed with his adoption, I only thought of it today when I met the parents waiting to adopt overseas infants outside."

"Mr Cullen, I have no hesitation in finding in favor of your wife, I am ordering the return of the sperm samples within thirty days."

Bella was ecstatic, it didn't mean she had to rush into using it, the 'shelf life' was infinite, in it's current state. It did mean we had to decide when to start trying to achieve a pregnancy with it , at what stage of our biological family.

Her pregnancy seemed to be going well, she had gained some weight and her blood tests were great, showing no anemia. She ate well, and slept like a log since I returned, and still made love nightly even in the last month.

It was interesting, finding new positions that were comfortable for her, and by necessity we had toned down the rough stuff, decided it could wait until after she was fully recovered from the birth. This was a time for gentle love making, not a physical exam to see how well we had studied the Karma Sutra.

My hands could not leave her alone, I stroked her skin, down her back, along her spine, over her buttocks, often got side tracked when she opened her legs and nudged my fingers towards her sex, I was happy stroking her there, intimately, to make her feel good.

We would always end up having full sex anyway, and she was always as horny as hell.

I love pregnant Bella, I had heard stories of women shutting up shop for the entire nine months, clearly Bella hadn't heard those stories, she was writing her own.

I wanted to have a song written ready for the baby when it was born.

We had decided not to ask the gender and the screen was always turned away so we wouldn't see after we had been shown the face and arms, and general body shots.

I really, secretly, wanted a little girl just like Bella, I thought that would be amazing. I never indicated my preference because I knew as soon as it was born and handed to me, I wouldn't care what sex it was anyway.

It would be our child.

Bella lay down and sighed loudly.

"What's up, love?' I asked her.

"I want this kid out. I am bored of being fat and I want to go to the beach but someone may mistake me for a whale and harpoon me, so I can't."

She was being ridiculous, she was still tiny Bella, just with a basketball shoved up her shirt.

I started fooling around with the serious lullaby I was hoping to compose, breaking out to some fun stuff.

"Say, say, oh playmate,

come out and play with me,

and bring your dollies three,

climb up my apple tree,

slide down my rainbow,

into my cellar door,

and we'll be jolly friends,

forever more."

"Did you hear that, kid, your Daddy wants to play with you, you should get out here." she ordered, poking her finger into her stomach.

She stood to answer the knock on our door and gasped as a rush of clear fluid drenched her feet.

"Edward?" she cried, standing still, legs apart.

I ran to her side and kissed her.

Alice opened the door and walked inside, and started her insane hand clapping.

"It's time."

"Tell me something I don't know." I replied to her, and she clasped Bella in a hug.

"This is soooo exciting. I can't wait to meet my niece."

"Alice." I warned. "It may yet be a boy."

"Oh don't be silly, I have seen it. It's a girl and she looks exactly like Bella, like you were too lousy to give her any of your DNA."

"It's a boy, and he looks exactly like Edward." Bella retorted.

Jasper, Emmett and Rose all laughed, and Emmett grabbed a piece of paper off our coffee table.

"So, what are we betting, folks? Nobody has any insider information, except our dear Papa and he won't tell, let's see who says 'girl' and who says 'boy' and how much you are willing to back your whim with. Edward, you first." Emmett announced.

"Boy. $200." I answered, suddenly wanting Bella to get her dream baby before I got mine. It seemed only fair, and a boy could look after his sister better if he were the older one.

If we had a daughter as beautiful as Bella, I would need some help fighting the suitors off.

Bella had never told me she changed her mind and wanted a son first, I was surprised.

"Okay, Edward says Boy. Bella, you say boy as well?"

"I say you will all find out first hand if you don't grab my bag and take me to hospital."

Rose was at her side, and Alice headed for the bedroom, and I opened the passenger door so Bella could climb in.

"Towels first." said my ever practical sister, sliding two under Bella as she sat down.

Rose and Alice got in the backseat.

Emmett rapped on the window.

"Come on, two seconds. Rose?"

"I was going to say boy, but I never bet against Alice, so girl. $200, but I will be taking it out of your wallet anyway so put me down for as much as you are willing to risk."

"Okay, Rose says Girl and bets $1,000." said Emmett, writing furiously.

"Girl, definitely girl, $100 of my shoe savings money." said Alice."I would bet more but I had those blue Manolo's to pay for this week."

"Jasper and I say girl, seeing we lost our shirts last time we ignored Psychic Pixie here, what? $2,000 each? Okay,so we shall see who is right. Winner's split the pot. Call me."

We were quickly on our way and the men left to mind the kids, who were at my parents house. I knew Esme would want to be there for the birth, and Rose could be helpful to Bella, seeing she had been through this three times. Alice, well, there was no army big enough to keep her away.

Rose went inside to alert the staff and get a wheelchair while Alice and I held Bella's hands as she screamed as each contraction hit. They were so close together, this was wrong.

I thought it took like 24 hours for the first?

More like 24 minutes.

"Edwarddd, it's coming." screamed Bella.

"I know, they will be right here." I assured her.

"No, it's coming NOW."

I pulled her dress up and saw the baby's feet starting to emerge. Blood, so much blood.

"Fuck. Shit. Alice, what do I do? Don't push, cross your legs, Bella, maybe?" I suggested, feeling very whoozy.

No, this was not happening this fast.

"Isn't the head supposed to come out first?" I screamed at Alice.

"Dad, thank God." Alice moaned.

Carlisle pushed me aside and he and the wardsman lifted Bella onto a gurney and ran with her, inside. I stood there, frozen, unable to move. This was going wrong, how do I fix this?

"Go, go with her." Alice shouted at me and pushed me towards the entrance.

She dragged me by the hand and then we were all sitting in chairs and I was seriously tugging my hair by the roots.

"Edward, gown up, go with Kim. She will show you." Carlisle said as he poked his head out the door of the OR.

"What's happening? I am her coach, I have to help her breathe and tell her when to push." I told the woman named Kim.

"Baby is a footling breech and pretty much jammed in, they are delivering by c section but you can still watch."

I was dressed in scrubs, and shown into a side door. Bella was unconscious, on a table, tubes and drips and sheets hiding most of her from me.

"Sit." the nurse said and I sat.

"It's an emergency, Edward, we need to get the baby out now, but it will be fine." promised my father.

I felt completely shocked and somewhat redundant and disappointed even. I had looked forward to the pushing and helping Bella get through a natural delivery. This was so medical, not what we had wanted or expected.

Bella's face was inches from me, and I stroked a finger along her cheek.

Doctors were talking, cutting, blood, then a small, naked, scrawny baby was being help upside down as blood dripped off his body. Clearly a boy. He was handed to a nurse and she scurried to a bench where she lay him down and started sticking a tube down his silent throat.

"Shouldn't he be crying?" I asked, terrified.

"Give him a minute." Carlisle said, standing at my side, walking me to where I could watch the nurse and a doctor as they roughly rubbed the baby with a towel and forced oxygen into his lungs.

He was so pale, almost blue.

It was a very long minute.

"What did you score him at?" the nurse asked the doctor who was stitching Bella up again inside her belly.

"Six." he said.

Finally, the baby choked and let out a small scream, almost silent at first, but his face was in a grimace and he started to wail.

"Good boy, keep going." encouraged the nurse, slapping the soles of his feet.

"Is he okay?" I asked. I thought it would be like in the tv shows, a red, screaming baby, all clean with washed hair, not this mottled, cream daubed, bloody creature, his arms flexed out, his fingers clawing at the air. He was slowly changing color, but he looked purplish to me. The doctor listened to his chest and checked him over.

"Eight. Maybe nine." he announced.

He continued to wail and the doctor stood back and let the nurse continue and she lay him on the scales and announced he was seven pounds exactly.

That was good, I had read enough books, that was pretty average and Bella was so small, I expected maybe a six pounder.

She wiped him off and wrapped him and handed him to me.

I grabbed him tightly, geez, seven pounds was not a lot when you had to hold it.

Carlisle pushed me into a chair and I looked at the green eyes of my son.

"I thought all babies had slate eyes that changed over time?" I asked. I read that somewhere.

"Not always, yours were as green as that when you were born." my father answered.

I looked over at Bella, still asleep, while the doctors stitched her together some more.

"Come this way, down to the nursery, and you can give him his first bath." suggested the nurse.

Carlisle nodded at me so I stood and followed her out and she showed me how to grip the baby so he wouldn't drown as I lay him in the warm water. She washed his mop of thick hair and the blood seeped into the bath water. It was much messier than I had imagined.

I lifted him out of the bath when she told me to, and laid him on the towels, that had been warmed, and his color was improving as she briskly rubbed him dry and dressed him quickly, pulling a blue cap over his mass of copper hair.

He was mine, alright. His body was covered in a sleepsuit and just his face and hands were visible.

She wrapped him in a blue blanket and handed him back to me.

"Sorry, I feel kind of useless, I didn't expect it to be like that." I said.

"Well, he is safe and sound and that is the important thing." she said, cleaning up the towels and bathwater.

I sat and rocked the baby and waited for Carlisle to come and get me when Bella woke up.

Finally, he and Esme walked in and she took the baby as I offered him up to her.

"Dad." I asked, the look on his face was worrying.

"The placenta detached, that's why we had to do the operation. Bella is comfortable. Still asleep. She lost a lot of blood, Edward. It was an emergency as I said, but I think she will be fine. We will have to transfuse her, and she will be closely monitored. Sorry she missed the birth, she will be upset but there was no time for an epidural, we had to knock her out."

I was glad she had missed the bad parts but I realized, yes, she was going to be disappointed. She and I had practiced natural childbirth techniques for the last four months, we never expected it to end up happening like this. The instructor had briefly mentioned some births ended this way but we had dismissed it as a possibility, really. It wouldn't happen to us.

Now it had.

I wished I could shake this feeling, like we went to the wrong party, and missed the fun, ended up at some drama instead. This just wasn't what I expected. I felt drained and shocked and guilty for feeling this way, and sad Bella had missed the whole thing, and we hadn't gotten to share what we had thought would be a great adventure.

The baby was fine, Bella would be okay, wasn't that all that mattered?

Carlisle took me to the recovery Room and I sat and held Bella's hand. I should be grateful and ecstatic they both lived through that. I was but the major feeling was still one of disbelief and disappointment.

After a while longer, of sitting there feeling totally out of place, Esme and my father came back, and handed me the baby and I lay him beside Bella as she started to wake up.

"What happened?" she croaked, her eyes fluttering open slowly.

"A few things went wrong but you are fine, the baby is fine." I told her.

Carlisle sat beside me and told Bella the medical stuff.

I just smiled , I hoped, it felt like a grimace but I was trying hard.

Esme lifted the baby so Bella could see his face and she smiled and stroked him with her free hand.

"A boy?"

Esme nodded.

"Seven pounds. He is gorgeous, green eyes, auburn hair, he looks so like Edward."

Bella seemed happy. I wish I could feel like I had expected to at this time. Jubilant, thrilled, keen to do it all again. Shit, would she seriously want to go through that again because I don't think I could.

At least she got the boy she wanted, I thought.

I will not be pushing her to try for my daughter, that was rough in there. No way. An only child was fine with me, suddenly.

"Have you showed the others?" Bella asked and I shook my head and lifted the bundle from her and walked to the door, and opened it.

Rose and Alice came in.

They looked at the boy with my hair, poor child, my green eyes and even my long fingers.

"Edward's clone." sighed Alice.

"He sure is a chip off the old block." said Rose, wiping away a tear.

"No , Rose, you have three already." I said, recalling her telling me about how women get urges to have babies when they see a newborn.

"I know, but I want another boy." she said, taking the blue blanketed baby from me and kissing his forehead.

"Emmett will kill me." I sighed.

"Rubbish, he loves making babies, he says it's his mad skill." she answered.

I took my son back and followed Carlisle to the room Bella was in, and I handed the baby to her.

"I wonder how much we won?" she said quietly with a small laugh.

"What was that about, Alice? Are you losing your abilities?" I asked.

"Nah, Bella and I decided we would split the profit." she answered with a grin. "We knew the men would follow my lead and being them, they would bet high. Sometimes they need taking down. And those Manolo's are delicious in red!"


	10. But The World Can Spin So Madly

Forevermore

Chapter 10

But The World Can Spin So Madly

Edward

It was evening when it really hit me. I was a father and I had to get my act together. Bella was the one who went through surgery, my girl needed me. The baby was awake, staring around the room, and Bella had been up briefly, to be showered, and now she lay in bed and smiled at me.

"So, a boy. Do you mind?"

"Of course not. He is amazing. I am pleased to have a son, don't doubt that."

"Maybe the next one will be a Daddy's girl."

"Bella, would you seriously ever consider going through that again? I'm never going to ask you to. It is your decision entirely."

"Of course I want more kids. Where is this coming from?" she asked.

"Oh, you know, seeing your woman almost bleed to death, seeing your son be cut out of her body, it wasn't quite what I was expecting. I was thinking of dimmed lights and soft music and you squeezing my hand so tight you broke a bone or two, and me watching you give birth naturally."

"Well, some things are out of our control."

"I know, and I am glad it's over and you are safe. I just don't know if I can go through that again."

"It might be how you pictured it, next time."

"Yeah, and it might not. Shit, that was scary. I really thought you were going to die." I confessed.

"I promised to never leave you, didn't I?"

I stroked her cheek, she has no idea how vital she is to my existence.

The nurse came and checked both mother and son, and we settled down for the night.

Bella fed the baby and I propped him against my shoulder and rubbed circles on his back.

Once he was settled, I lay beside Bella on her bed and rubbed her back while she slept.

A few hours later we were rudely awakened and I changed the diaper and handed our son to his mother.

"What is his name?" I asked her.

"What do you want to name him?" she replied.

"I reserve the right to name the girl, if you insist on having more. You choose his name."

"Not Jacob." she said, and I nodded."I want to name his baby after him, if it's a boy."

Shit, I had forgotten that baby was still on offer as well. How many times would we be going through this?

"Are you sure you still want to have Jacob's baby?" I asked.

"Edward, nothing has changed. We had a c section, not a death. I still intend having another child to you and having Jake's baby as well."

"We will have to wait and see how you recover first." I cautioned her.

I lay awake long after Bella and the baby were asleep, trying to make sense out of today.

I guess the world does keep turning, no matter what and we have to adjust and change our dreams if they don't turn out like we hoped.

The morning brought pain and drugs and visitors and questions , everyone had suggestions for his name and Bella seemed pretty out of it.

"Something meaningful." suggested Alice.

"Yes, a family name." joined in Rose.

I thought about our grandparents and great uncles. Nothing appealed but Bella would have other family names of her own.

"Edward." said Bella, sleepily.

"Yes, my love." I replied.

"I want him named Edward."

"Maybe we should wait a few days until you feel better. You might think of something you like more."

"I love you, Edward, I want our son to have your name. Please."

"Edward it is." I replied.

I wasn't sure I liked the tradition of naming babies after their father's, it limited the name supply. And if we had a second son, he wouldn't be named after me.

Not to mention, he will be Young Edward and me Old Edward by default. Or we will both be answering when she calls out Edward.

Bella recovered slowly and Carlisle told us we may be limited to one more pregnancy only.

That bothered me.

Who would she choose, me or Jake? Who got to father the baby if there was to only be the one more?

I wanted a girl , would Jake's daughter suffice?

Selfishly, I thought not. I wanted my daughter, our daughter.

Edward Jnr was adjusting well to independent living and the doctors were pleased with Bella's progress so we were looking at going home when he was six days old. I am sure Carlisle pulled strings to keep them in longer than usual, until Bella felt better.

"So, Little Eddie." said Emmett, looking into the crib. I cringed, it sounded like a name for my dick, not my son.

"We need a nickname, Bella."

"Josh" suggested Emmett. I looked at him.

"How is Josh a nickname for Edward?" I questioned.

"He looks like a Josh." Emmett answered.

"We could name him Edward Joshua." Bella suggested.

"We could name him Joshua Edward." I answered back.

"You don't want him named after you, do you?" she said.

"I just think he should have his own name. I never liked the whole Jnr thing."

"Okay, fine, but I get one veto when you name our daughter."

"Fine." I replied, pleased our daughter was still on the agenda.

Josh he was, and I filled in the registration form for the birth certificate before she changed her mind again.

Life at home was different, with a wake up call around 5am each morning, but he soon slept through the night so it wasn't too bad.

When he turned three months old, I went to work at the local television station. It was boring and mundane work but I had so much to go home to, I started to see how Emmett endured it.

Josh would smile the minute I walked into the room and now Bella had recovered, she usually wanted to welcome me home in her own special way soon after.

Josh had a plentiful toy supply so he was happy laying in his playpen while his mother and I played in our bedroom for an hour or so. It was better than trying to fit in sex at night, as some nights were all night screaming sessions and we took turns walking the floor with him, and some nights we fell asleep during foreplay, we were that tired.

It was funny, I guess, waking up to find my hand in Bella's panties, where it had crept to play but we had drifted off to sleep before we got down to anything more advanced.

But we did have plenty of sex and Bella refused to use contraception even though Carlisle warned her she needed a year at least to recover if she had any hope of hoping for a vaginal delivery next time.

I had managed to not get her pregnant all through our early days together, and soon I was the expert at pulling out in time.

Josh's first birthday was a major family event but Bella kept pulling me away from our guests and having her way with me in the bedroom.

"Bella, we can do this tonight." I offered. Josh had long since slept through, and he never woke until after we did, sex in bed at night was not a problem.

"It's a year, I am allowed to conceive today." she insisted so we gave it our best shot. Six times.

I was exhausted by the time we finally got to bed that night and I felt Bella's hand crept down my torso.

"Bella, I am warning you, if you start anything, you will be doing all the work and I will be laying here like a log. I have held you up against the wall too many times to recall today. I am done in."

"Lightweight." she teased and had me hard and ready even as I spoke so I stuck to my word and left her to it.

It was a nice way to say goodnight, being ridden.

I watched Bella above me with half closed eyes and drifted off as soon as she finished us both off. I was asleep before she rolled to my side.

Determined Bella was a sight to behold, sex was her first priority after the baby, or if he was asleep, her only one.

We challenged ourselves, trying to beat our own best efforts at how many times we could climax together in a single night but alternate nights I was asleep before she settled Josh so she didn't get to kill me from exhaustion, much as she seemed to be trying.

To switch it up, I cooked dinner and had the baby asleep one night when she visited Alice, and she was delighted to come home to candles and flowers and dinner ready.

Tonight felt like the night, for some reason.

Bella was as eager as ever and had me naked, stripping articles of my clothing off while I cleaned the kitchen and stacked the dishwasher. I was completely naked by the time we headed for the bedroom.

The test was positive so she achieved her goal first month again and was jubilant about that. I was grateful she chose to have our second baby ahead of Jacob's child. There was no guarantee she would be in any state to have a third pregnancy, but if anyone could overcome the odd's, it would be her.

"Yes, let's celebrate!" she laughed as she showed me the test stick.

"Okay, how about we get married?" I suggested. I had no idea if she was ready yet, she never talked about it any more.

"Are you sure? We seem to be pretty good as we are now,"

"Don't you want to marry me?" I asked.

"Of course I do. It's just, the drama, the picking the colors and seating plans and all that. Not my scene."

"Then we can elope and not tell anyone." I offered.

"Good idea."

"Seriously, Bella? What about our families and friends?"

"Whose wedding is it, ours or theirs? They all got to do their own weddings their way, I want just us. Alice can come, and Rose, and obviously their men, and we should have Esme and Carlisle, and Charlie. But that's it."

I understood Bella's reluctance to have another large wedding, she didn't need flashbacks of her first wedding to spoil things for her, and all I wanted was my ring on her finger, and hers on mine.

My parents were thrilled we were finally doing the right thing for ourselves, and Esme spent the day wiping away her tears of happiness.

My father couldn't stop grinning. He had expected this day to have taken place so many years earlier. Bella and Jacob's wedding had been incredibly hard for him as he felt Bella was doing the wrong thing by all three of us, and he didn't begin to understand how she could hurt me that way, when she clearly loved me. He had been angry when Bella collapsed into my Mother's arms and cried her heart out, clearly over being there with the wrong groom.

Esme understood why Bella did it, but I guess us men see things in black and white. She loved me, she wanted me, therefore she should not have even considered Jake's proposal and settled.

The yard was set up with chairs and white ribbons and flowers. I needed her to walk down an aisle, no matter how makeshift.

Her dress was perfect, white,silky, closely fitted with a flared hem, her shoulders bare and so tempting, I wanted to kiss and lick every inch of them. Her breasts were fuller already, from the hormones and so they jutted out tantalizingly, and mocked me as they called to me, knowing I couldn't touch them.

The dress may have been white but it was by no means virginal.

The woman who walked towards me on her fathers arm was a temptress, and the twinkling in her eyes promised a night to remember long into our old age.

I felt so happy that day, it really rivalled no other. My Bella, mine at last. I knew she had always been mine but this was our declaration to the world that we chose one another and there was no other ending. It was how it always should have been.

"You look so amazing, I want to disappear inside your dress and give these people a show to remember." I whispered as Charlie backed away after handing her to me.

I kissed her neck and she leaned in close.

"I want to do something so physical we end up with the matching broken legs Renee predicted we would have on our wedding day. Something involving nakedness and chocolate sauce needing to be licked away and your tongue.."

I stepped back and gave her the look, I didn't need to be at attention in front of everyone.

We repeated our vows and it was surprisingly moving, I had expected it to be merely something we needed to get through, but the words held true meaning and I accepted her promises knowing she meant every word.

I could barely speak during my own turn, the words seemed inadequate to truly express everything I felt. She was changing me today, accepting me as her mate, her life partner, her lover, and I had been all these things already, but now I had the ultimate role and title, her husband.

Ever since she proposed when we were six, my heart had waited for this moment.

How easily we had tossed about the word over the years, we had assumed there was no other husband for her and it had been a shock to discover she couldn't wait for me.

I knew she sincerely regretted her actions, she had acknowledged many times she couldn't believe she had ever allowed her marriage to Jake to happen.

She assured me this time it was different, her heart was fully involved and there were no regrets at all.

I didn't want to belittle her first wedding, she loved Jake in her own way, but she was still horrified she had given up on us.

Fear had been the key, her conviction I would make her a widow so young, she said she would never have survived my loss in any circumstances but had we married and had I died as Jake did, she would have followed me and stepped off the roof that very day.

What kept her from doing that when Jake died had been hope I would come home and mend her.

That hope would not have existed had it been me.

She was as precious to me as she had ever been, and it felt right, even without the crowd and the presents, our wedding was perfect.

Josh toddled around and got fussed over, and Alice took him home with her to their house across the road so we could have our wedding night alone.

Bella was still feeling well, no morning sickness yet, so it was a night to remember.

Our last night of uninhibited sex before we toned it down for the rest of the pregnancy.

Mind you, pregnancy sex can be awesome, especially when your wife is flooded with hormones constantly that make her want sex all the time.

Talk about reliving our teens, I think we were having more sex now.

Definitely sneakier sex. Kitchen sex, Bella was forever forgetting her underwear and grinding herself up against me with her backside while we tried to prepare meals but many of them got spoilt as I gripped her hips and pounded into her from the back as she leaned against the counter.

The funniest of these sessions was when Alice walked in once and picked up Josh and glared at us, taking him outside to play.

When we finished and followed her outside, she gave me the lecture on corrupting a minor by letting him see his parents bonking.

"There was a breakfast bar between us, he couldn't see a thing. Relax, Alice. We were being good parents, keeping a watch on our baby."

"This child will grow up thinking kitchens are the appropriate room to have sex in. Don't you think thats unhygienic?"

"We were not on top of the bench or in the sink, so no, I don't."

Josh had his own revenge. One day while he was being babysat at their place, he wandered into the shower where some activity was taking place and threw his teddy into the shower with them.

Alice was mortified.

"Now he thinks bathrooms are for sex, Alice." I smirked when she returned child and wet bear to us.

"I consider every room suitable for sex." said Bella.

"I suppose we should be grateful you keep it restricted to inside the house, seeing we are your next door neighbors." replied Alice and Bella gave us away by blushing.

"Oh no, where?"

"Pool. Towel beside the pool. Gazebo..."

"Stop, stop. I am sorry I asked and I will be keeping the shades down on that side of our house now. Perverts."

Alice fell pregnant soon after Bella so Jasper and I got to keep company and discuss horny pregnant wives over the occasional beer.

Rose and Emmett had hit a snag, they were having no luck conceiving Baby number four but Emmett swore he would keep trying until they got it right. His three children were all good kids so I could understand them wanting one last baby to complete the family.

The age gap between Emma and the last was widening though.

Rose was more concerned than Emmett, he liked being forced to have sex constantly, he confessed he would be a little sorry when he hit the jackpot. Rose was not hit by the horny bug while pregnant, apparently.


	11. And Love Can Hurt So Badly

**A/n this story always takes me back to when I was writing it before, when my FIL Joe died, so I am going to try and finish it quickly, just so it's not an abandoned story.**

Forevermore

Chapter 11

And Love Can Hurt So Badly

EPOV

"Edward."

I smiled as I answered the phone.

"How goes it, Peter?"

"I just wanted to let you know everything's on track, David is coming back himself for a few months break so he will be accompanying Tunafish on his flight to you."

"Fantastic. You got a date for me yet?"

"Next Monday. You ready?"

"Oh yeah, we are ready and waiting.

I bounced Josh on my hip and he gnawed at the cookie in his hand. I couldn't wait to see Tuna again and hoped he would be able to settle in quickly. His room was ready, I had him booked in for another complete check up and Carlise was working out a diet and exercise program to help him grow, hopefully, and go through puberty if it wasn't too late. Once he was eating nourishing meals and taking supplements and having constant medical supervision, we were hopeful his body would grow as it should have and catch up with some of the progress it should have made by now.

Carlisle had cautioned me that he may need to use steroids to help the boys body grow, but we would wait and see first, not rush into anything.

Bella came into the room as I finished the phone call.

"Good news, Tuna will be here next Monday. David's flying in with him, we will have to meet them at the airport around noon."

"Finally, I was worried the baby was going to arrive before he got here."

I put Josh onto the floor and he raced for the open door, which Bella closed before he made the distance.

"Edward, Rose and Emmett are thinking of adopting. What do you think?"

"I think that sounds like a great idea. Where from?"

"They are specifying any war zone, they want another boy and there are plenty needing a good home where you worked, so they think it may be the answer."

"Still no luck conceiving, then?"

"Nope, no explanation. All the tests came back normal and she never took more than two months to conceive the three they have."

"Have they applied?"

"They have done all the paperwork already, it's just a matter of being matched with the right baby."

"I wonder what that means? Surely any baby orphaned in a war zone and needing a new set of parents and a safe home is the right baby?"

"The babies have to pass all the health checks and the authorities have to be sure either they have no relatives still living or that any relatives are giving permission for the child to be taken out of the country and raised over here. It's not as easy as it was with Tuna, where you had a known orphan with no family at all, and knew the boy. I can't wait for him to get here. This will be such fun."

"I hope we are doing the right thing. He is a teenager and everything will blow his mind. He has never seen a house with glass windows, or floors even, Bella. He rarely lived indoors, this will be a massive culture shock to him."

"Such a tragedy his little brother died and couldn't have come as well, two would have been nice. And they would have had shared experiences."

"Some of which I wish we could erase."

"So, what's his official name?"

"David managed to get his papers,his birthname is Matteen, so Matt would be good."

"Better than Tunafish." she laughed.

I hoped he would be able to remember his name once he got used to us calling him it. To be that traumatized, it didn't bear thinking about.

I called Carlisle and we were fully ready to start tests and treatment next week, I would take Matt in on the Friday. Give him a few days to settle.

"You know, I just had a thought. Josh, Matt, what sounds good with those names?"

"Something short?" I guessed.

"Luke. Matt, Josh, Luke."

"So, you think it's another boy?" I asked her. We had not asked, but Bella had her theories.

"I am carrying exactly the same as last time, it must be a boy. And it kicks like Josh did."

"I would hazard a guess that you were no gentle, well behaved girl yourself before birth, you weren't afterwards." I pointed out.

I long for a little girl. I adore Josh, and Matt is just as welcome, but I dearly hope this baby is a girl. Bella has been perfectly fine so far but she was with Josh as well, and look how that ended.

We are currently debating whether to have a trial run at a natural vaginal delivery or a planned c section with an epidural so Bella is awake and it's not an emergency, which is what a trial labor may progress to.

I initially wanted the ideal delivery that we missed last time but the closer it gets, the more I am changing my mind and wanting the safest option. I need Bella to be safe and to come out of this in the best possible shape.

The trip to the airport was one full of excitement and anticipation. Josh and Bella only knew Tuna by the video's and he had a single photo I had sent over, of us three. David said it was tattered and stained within a week as Tuna never stopped looking at it and showing it around. The whole idea of having a new little brother apparently thrilled him. I know he loved his own brother, if love alone could have saved that child, he would be coming here to us as well.

Tuna walked from the plane, his eyes wide as he looked at the buildings. He had never seen more than two or three buildings together, now he was in a city where it was rare to see a single vacant lot left.

He gripped David's hand tightly but the fear left his eyes the moment they caught mine and he grinned widely.

"Edward! Edward!" he called, straining at David's hand now. Where it had been his security, now it was the obstacle that kept him from running to me.

He hopped around impatiently, grinning and waving as he waited to be processed. Finally they were through and he ran straight into my arms.

"Edward. Hi!" he said.

"How was the plane trip?" I asked him.

"Oooh, very scary! It flew like a bird but it's wings didn't flap, Edward, how did it stay up there?" he asked.

"I am sure we can find a book about how planes work, I don't actually understand how that much metal manages to fight gravity myself."

Tuna looked shyly at Bella, who had stepped forward with Josh.

"Hi, Matt. I'm Bella and this is Josh."

"My name is Matteen," he said , his voice filled with wonder at the new discovery.

"That's right. We thought maybe you would like us to call you Matt. There are lots of boys here named Matt."

"Really?" he exclaimed, excitedly.

"This is Josh."

He reached out a hand and stroked the baby's leg. Josh laughed and pulled at Matt's hair.

"He's like Little Bear."

"He is like Little Bear but he is not hurt, Matt. He is your new brother now."

"I will look after him, Edward. Family is important."

"Indeed it is." I agreed.

Bella didn't hesitate to hand the baby over when Matt shyly put his hands out to take him. He looked too small and slight to take on the fast growing, chubby toddler we had produced, but he deftly slid the baby onto his back and walked to the car with us.

I took Josh and strapped him into his car seat and then Matt into his seat belt.

Matt could not keep his mouth from gaping as we drove. He seemed very nervous of the traffic but who isn't, the way so many idiots drive. It was a relief to all when we got out into suburbia. His eyes had been as wide as saucers as he saw the high rise buildings and offices in the city and he was fascinated by the mix of races amongst the people walking down the sidewalks.

When we got home, he shyly let Bella help him from the car and he waited for us to invite him inside.

"This is the kitchen, there is always food and drink in this fridge, you may help yourself any time, Matt." Bella said.

"And this is the sitting room, and the playroom is through here."

He was clearly overwhelmed at all our rooms and the bathroom made him laugh. I showed him the shower and explained I would assist him at first but he would soon get the hang of things.

"This is your bedroom." Bella said, opening the door.

Matt stood, and looked inside, but was too afraid to go into the room.

"We will leave the door open and the light on and the window open." I assured him. He had probably not slept inside a building in his memory. His parents may well have had a shanty of some sort but after they died, he had taken Little Bear and moved around, sleeping wherever he could find any cover, under a tree or rock ledge even.

Bella served our meal and showed him how to eat a sandwich and he laughed and held the small triangle of bread with both hands.

"He's so small." Bella mouthed over his head.

"My father is a doctor, Matt and he is going to see if we can help you grow up nice and strong." I explained.

He giggled and hid his mouth.

"And a dentist would be good." added Bella.

"Once he is settled in." I cautioned. He would have such a hard time adjusting.

I was so very glad we had Josh, he gave us all a common interest and Matt found the toddler particularly fascinating.

"He's my brudder now, Edward. I will take good care of him. I tried to care for Little Bear." he said, sadly.

"Matt, you did a really good job with him. He was hurt too badly to be able to get better." I told him gently.

"He is with God and Saviour and Angelpersons." he added. "My Parents, they be there too. With Little Bear. They be taking care of him now."

"Of course they are. I am sure your Mom is glad to have her baby back and she is very proud of you, Matt."

He blushed and hid his face under the tablecloth.

He had very little contact with women. Bella was so good with him, allowing him space and ignoring the mess he made when he played with Josh's many toys. How strange it must be for Matt to see a toddler so overindulged with more toys than a toyshop.

Bella set up paper and crayons on the table after she cleared away the dishes and I did the kitchen duty so she could show the boys how to draw and color in.

Matt was fascinated, and he drew picture after picture, laughing when Bella pointed out different things he had drawn. He was amazingly accurate and he had probably only drawn in the dirt with a stick, until now. He widened his eyes in amazement as each crayon left a different colored mark.

He named them all.

Dirt for brown, sun for orange, water for white, sky for blue, blood for red.

Bella shuddered but he knew no better. He had seen a lot of blood in his short life. It may well have been the only red thing he had ever seen, in fact.

Then when he saw Bella shudder, he changed the name.

"Coke. Cokehead."

Of course, the cap I gave him. It was red.

"Good." I nodded in approval.

Bella named each color and Josh attempted to eat the crayons so Matt joined in.

"No, no eating." said Bella. "These are not food, and don't go in mouths, okay?"

"No, no, no." chanted Josh.

Matt laughed in delight at the toddler and crawled around on his hands and knees playing with our son at his level.

That first night, I helped Matt take a shower, and dress himself in a pair of boxers only, it seemed too much to start with full pajamas yet and I read him a story as he rolled about, trying to understand the concept of sleeping in a bed.

The pictures in the book held his interest though, he grinned at the photos of his country and the red dirt he had grown up with, and the familiar animals. No war, no soldiers, this was a children's story of the country, sanitized, Disneyfied.

He finally drifted off and when I checked on him in the night, I found his bed empty and his body curled up on the floor, beneath the window. Of course, the boy had never slept without the stars shining down onto him.

Breakfast was an interesting affair, teaching Matt how to use a spoon and eat cereal was a challenge and I worried about adding dairy to his diet . Bella was happy for him to eat whatever he preferred so at first he chose fruit and his obsession with beef jerky continued. We took him places that were not too crowded at first, and he gradually learned to fit in around his new surroundings.

Bella had put a small exercise mat on his bedroom floor so he could continue sleeping near the window, but I had an idea.

We decided to take the boys away for a weekend to the sea, and while we were gone, I had a builder in, making a small alteration.

xxx xxx xxx

Matt was terrified of the sea, he had never seen it except to fly over it, so the whole concept was more than he could grasp. The sand fascinated him and he walked warily across it, to where we had set up our picnic rug, umbrella and picnic lunch.

Josh had no such fears and Bella's belly prevented her being the one to keep Josh from running head on into the surf.

Matt sat on the blanket and shivered in fear and delight, as he watched the baby and I running out as the waves receded, and back up the wet sand when they spilled over the shore. By the end of the day, he had walked a little closer and while he grinned broadly, his small frame still shook in anticipation. Josh had finally fallen asleep on the blanket so Bella was resting beside him, and I picked Matt up and put him on my shoulders, and ran along the beach at the waterline.

We walked back together, a good two feet away from the water, and he finally decided he needed to stick a toe in and feel the water. He frowned in concentration then ran like the wind as soon as he felt the cold and wet touch his foot.

He was shrieking in joy and fear, but he talked all the way home about his 'first swim', proudly.

Walking into the house, nothing looked different and Bella looked at me as she surveyed the rooms, wondering what I had been having converted.

Matt made the discovery himself. It was just on twilight and he ran into his bedroom then stopped dead still in his tracks.

"Edward, the stars are in my bedroom," he cried out in delight.

Bella walked in and smiled.

The new skylight window covered about a third of his ceiling. Matt had his stars back.

He lay in his bed that night and talked about our weekend, but his eyes never left the window to the sky above him.

"It's a bit like home, now, Edward. Are they the stars where Little Bear lives now, with my Mom and Dad?"

"Yes, that brightest star there, that's their new home."

"One day I will live their too, Edward, won't I? Maybe go there in an aeroplane?" he asked.

"I am sure when you are old and gray and it's your time, your other family will welcome you back. But while you live here on earth, I hope Bella and I can be your family, too, Matt."

"I sure miss Little Bear, Edward," he confessed, wiping a tear from his face.

I hoped we had done the right thing, taking this child away from all he had ever known. I fell asleep beside him on his bed, beneath the stars.


	12. And Stories End So Sadly

Forevermore

And Stories End So Sadly

Time seemed to fly by and as we entered the maternity unit again , it seemed like only yesterday since Josh was delivered. Emmett waved and ran over from his car, camera in hand.

"So, this is it, the real thing?" he asked, grinning. Emmett loved childbirth, go figure. Rose had pointed out it was not him having to squeeze a watermelon out of his body, he just got to watch and enjoy the whole event.

Carlisle had agreed to a trial labor but all the equipment was in place and if Bella need a c section, neither of us would argue. Much as I longed for the experience of a natural delivery, I was no longer holding out hope it would happen.

Bella was not due for another six days but the baby had other ideas and after a restless night, we decided to err on the side of caution and go have a check up. Matt and Josh were in Alice's care, in our house, Matt had visited Alice and Jasper and was comfortable with them now, but he greatly preferred our house to anything other place. No matter where we took him, he was always eager to race inside and check the skylight was still there, in his bedroom.

His walls were covered with drawings he had done of the stars, and he was sure Little Bear was watching down over us.

I hoped the boys would be happy and accepting of the new baby, they had both been read numerous books about the new baby coming into a family, and Matt was quite excited. Josh was too young to understand yet so the full impact was yet to be felt by him. Bella and I had tried to include them both, and they had helped us set up the baby's room, and I took the boys out to buy welcoming gifts for the new sibling.

A new little Cullen, I was so looking forward to it's arrival.

"Okay, Bella, you are about six centimetres dilated so we can try and speed things up, just by walking initially," my father told us. "Everything looks great, so it will be a minute by minute thing, and we will intervene at the first sign of a problem. But I think you can do this," he assured her.

"So, we are naming the baby Luke?' she asked as we walked the length of the corridor yet again, pausing now and then when a contraction hit. They were not yet very strong or painful, so she simply would turn and put her arms around my neck and rest as it passed.

She couldn't stand me rubbing her belly or lower back, so my hands hovered at her sides, lightly touching her waist as she and I counted and breathed through the pain.

Carlisle checked her every hour and she was making slow but sure progress.

I tried to keep my hopes contained but I so wanted us to have this baby as nature intended, pushed out into the world by it's mother.

"Sure, Luke is good. You are so sure still it is a boy?" I asked. I was happy with safe and sound by this point, I didn't dwell on my hopes for a daughter.

"I am pretty sure I saw something during that last scan that looked kind of familiar," she confided.

"Like?"

"Like the Cullen package," she elaborated then paused and bent over a little, panting.

"I think my water just broke," she said, excited but fearful.

Emmett was filming us, on and off, and he came closer.

Clear liquid was coursing down her inner thigh and pooling onto the floor at her feet.

"Right," I said, waiting, and once the contraction passed, I scooped her into my arms and carried her back to her delivery room.

"Ten centimetres and fully effaced, let's get this show on the road," Carlisle announced excitedly.

Now we just had to get through the pushing. I boxed up my fears she could suffer any tear to her uterus from the old scar and the pressure it was being subjected to, and concentrated and being there, fully, and participating in this miracle.

Bella chose to be on the floor, so she had a mattress to kneel on and I knelt and faced her so she could keep her arms around my neck.

"Okay, now you need to choose something to concentrate on," advised the nurse. "if you pick something to stare at, it helps you stay in the moment and provides an anchor,"

Bella smiled and gazed into my eyes, not breaking the look even as she pushed and moaned with the pain.

"Okay, well done, good," said Carlisle , sitting beside us on the mattress. There was soft music, the cd of me playing various songs I had composed drifted through the room but the lights had to stay brightly lit to watch carefully for trouble. Bella lost only a little blood so things looked good, and the baby's head was descending nicely.

I felt incredibly excited and involved with this birth, so different to the first where I was merely a spectator.

Rose arrived, too excited to wait at home for the news, and she came in towards the end, at our invitation and sat behind Bella and helped her brace to push the baby out, and my father instructed me what to do as the head emerged and turned and the shoulders made their appearance.

"Okay, Edward, just support the baby's body," he said, smiling at me.

I knew he had always hoped I would go into medicine myself but it had never interested me at all until now. Watching this baby emerge into my hands, I realized how much satisfaction he got from moments like these.

Bella was groaning loudly as Rose encouraged her to push and assured her it was almost over.

Bella kept eye contact the whole time and I was switching mine from her eyes to the baby's head and back.

"And here we go," Carlisle said with such happiness, I knew he was getting as much out of the experience as I was.

My newborn baby son lay in my hands, and the nurse was clearing the mucus from his mouth and throat as Bella and I watched, my hands shaking with relief and the stress was receding as we saw him gasp and cry and pink up.

"Nine," said Carlisle and I laughed.

"My performance? You are scoring me?" I asked, incredulous. This was my first delivery.

"No, I am scoring your new son. He looks great."

Bella was smiling widely and I lay him on her now deflated belly up near her breasts and she touched his back.

Rose was bellowing loudly, with joy and probably a little envy that it wasn't her.

We had made a miracle and brought him into the world together.

Once it was established the placenta had been delivered completely and intact,everyone but Emmett and Rose drifted off and left us with Luke. He held Bella's gaze with his own and she was crying tears of joy at his safe arrival.

Josh's birth had taught us nothing is set in stone and anything could happen at any time but we had triumphed and made it through.

Rose went to stand beside Emmett in the background while Bella and I explored the body of our new baby. His hair was more like hers, than Josh's had been at birth but My green eyes were there, again. Dammit, I would have liked a child with Bella's beautiful brown eyes, but whatever.

If I was being honest, I would have preferred a child without the Cullen package, impressive as it was. But Luke was the baby we were blessed with and the slight pangs of disappointment about the gender passed, as I locked them away. It seemed we were destined to have all boys, unless Jake's baby ended up being a little girl.

I was not going to even suggest Bella give up the idea of carrying that baby, she still needed a little bit of her best friend back and I accepted and understood, and anyway, even if we had another child together, it could just as easily be another son. It was not like I was giving up my daughter to agree to Jake's child being born, Bella had given me that chance already and Luke had turned up, instead.

Rose helped Bella with her shower while Emmett filmed the first bath I gave Luke and I looked him over properly. Perfectly formed, larger than Josh had been, eight pounds eleven ounces, enormous for Bella to have produced, really. I wondered if her ladies parts would recover and welcome me back inside, ever, after squeezing this baby out.

Bella was sitting on her bed in her room when I wheeled Luke in inside his bassinette, and she reached for him, and I watched as she and Rose got him started on his first taste of breastmilk.

Rose was being so supportive, it was making everything easier.

"So, two boys," said Emmett, high fiving me as he took a rest from filming.

"Three boys," corrected Bella, and I loved her even more in that moment. She had accepted Matt like he was our own from the start.

xxx xxx xxx

The boys were polar opposites when Alice and Jasper brought them in to visit. Josh was completely disinterested in his baby brother and just wanted his mother to hold him.

Matt stood beside the perspex crib and stared in awe at his new brother. A grin split his face and he help out a finger and Luke grabbed it, holding on tightly.

"See, he likes you," I told Matt.

"I like him, Edward. I haven't seen a baby so small before."

"He will grow, and in no time he will be more interesting, when he starts doing things," I said.

"I like looking at him sleep," answered Matt. He seemed fascinated by him already.

"I like living here and having a new family," he told me when i drove the boys home to bed. I was spending this night here as Bella was sure she would just be catching up on her sleep, and Rose wanted to stay the night with her and help with Luke, so it seemed like the best solution.

Jasper sat with me outside, having a quiet beer together as Alice fussed around cleaning up, and the boys both slept in their beds.

"You could always adopt a little girl," he suggested, somehow reading my mind.

"I am sure this will pass, and I will be perfectly content with sons, I just held out a little hope the baby was a girl," I admitted, seeing he clearly knew that already.

"How do you think you will feel if the Jake baby is a girl?' he asked, perceptively.

"I don't know. I hope I don't feel jealous of Jacob, for giving her what I didn't."

"You still agree with her having his baby?" he asked, kicking at the grass under his chair.

"I do. I will never deny her anything that is in my power to give her. She is everything to me, Jaz. I love her,I have always loved her, she gave me a second chance, and I am doing my best to make up for all the ways I forgot to put her first in our past. things could have been different, she could have always been mine and never gone to him, and we would have been married for years by now, and had our kids sooner and maybe the little girl I dreamed of would have been in that family. I chose to let her walk away from me, God knows how or why, I was such a selfish prick who could not see what was the most important thing. In a way, not getting the ideal boy and girl family will always remind me that I didn't deserve any of them, at all. I am happy with what we have, truly, Jasper. We are a generation who grew up getting everything we ever wanted, this is just my first experience of having to let go of a dream."

"Yeah, you never let go of the Edward and Bella dream, I guess."

"I never did. I almost did, several times, when things looked like she was leaving me behind, in her past, but there was always this spark of hope that somehow she would stop denying the truth and come back to me, no matter how far things went with Jacob. We would have destroyed him and his life with her. She would have chosen me again, you know,"

"I do believe that is true. The girl was in denial about her feelings, if you saw the way she cried her heart out at her wedding," he said, shaking his head. "I don't think she would have walked down that aisle had you been there."

I looked at him, wondering if that was true. Could I have stopped the whole charade and though Jake would have been crushed by her actions, he would have lived though them.

"It was not the happiest day of her life by a long shot. I know she gave a little of her heart to Jacob, but not enough, Edward. She always kept the larger part for you."

I was truly a lucky man and very blessed.

xxx xxx xxx

Luke was a placid baby and Bella recovered far more quickly after this delivery and soon we were in a routine and the three boys were all growing and playing and becoming a firm unit. Carlisle started Matt on steroids and the boy was shooting up like a weed that had been neglected and had finally found the sun again.

He was filling out and maturing, and starting to look his true age. Carlisle was trying to help him adjust to all the changes his body was rapidly going through, knowing puberty would kick in as soon as he become a little heavier. Bella wanted to home school him longer but it was too impractical, she had a disgruntled toddler who was having a few problems accepting the little screaming newcomer was in her arms more than he was, and when he wasn't playing up, he was running wild. Luke's arrival had changed Josh from serene center of attention to cranky ex baby.

"It is apparently like a husband bringing home a second wife," Alice told us, reading one of the many books we scoured through looking for ways to make our toddler happy again.

I took Matt to the orthodontist and his wasted decayed front teeth had been removed and replaced with bridges and he was forever looking at himself in the mirror.

He was turning into quite an attractive teen and I started to wonder if we would soon be entering the turbulent waters of puberty and how we would all cope. Matt had seemed like a small child, due to his retarded growth and years of neglect but he was changing in front of our eyes.

Bella and I were staring to realize, we had taken on a teenager!

His clothes were changing in style as they were updated due to his increase in height and weight, and Bella suggested I start teaching him to play the piano, seeing he was so fascinated by it.

He was an excellent student, and a natural musician, and I knew his rapid progress was more about him and less about me but I still felt incredibly proud of him.

Josh had decided I was his favorite parent now, so I had a small, wriggly boy grasping my legs the moment I walked through the door each afternoon.

I was letting him touch the piano keys and showing him very basic one finger tunes, and he shocked us all by copying.

Maybe we had two musical geniuses on our hands.

Luke was a restless baby and I took over after dinner so Bella could rest for a while before bedtime. I was starting to wonder how we would cope with another child, but kept those thoughts to myself. I had always promised to support her in her quest to have Jake's baby and I was not backing out now.

About six months after Luke had arrived, Bella raised the inevitable subject.

I was lying in the yard on a blanket with a sleeping Luke while Matt was showing Josh how to throw a basketball through a low hoop on the side of the garage. He was enjoying sport himself and wanted his little brother to enjoy it as well, so he spent hours with Josh and the game. We were both grateful, it gave Bella a break and she was looking good, like her old self. Luke slept through the night from three months so I knew it would not be long until this subject arose.

"So, Edward, I don't think I want a really big gap between Luke and the next baby. What do you think?"

"I think as you cop most of the load, you should decide. How does it work, anyway?"

"They just artificially inseminate his sperm into me, when I am ovulating and if I concieve, that's it. but if it doesn't happen, you are aware there are only four vials?"

"Yes," I frowned.  
"I am thinking maybe if the three fail, then I may have IVF and have them inject a single sperm into a couple of my eggs, and have them implanted instead, to increase the chances."

"So,test tube babies," I answered, unsure if I wanted her going through anything that invasive. I only knew a little, from listening to Rose when she was going through her options,but she had not proceeded because she and Emmett were wary of the drugs needed and the chances they could harm Rose.

"A test tube baby, I am only having one baby to Jake. I just feel I owe him, and anyway, we never got closure. I need part of him to come back to me. I know it's probably impossible for you to understand why I still need to do this, even though we have our own children now."

I placed my arms around her and kissed her cheek.

"I do understand, love. But in all honesty, I hope the insemination takes, i don't know how I would feel if you had to do all that high tech stuff, to be honest."

"Well, there will be a natural limit, once his sperm is all used, it's over, whether I get a baby or not."

There was that.

I could hardly protest about her almost obsession with doing this, she had ultimately allowed my obsession with going to war zones, and supported my decisions completely, even taking away that time limit. I owed her the same support and acceptance of what she needed to do.

Funnily enough, I didn't miss my former professions, staying here was much more important, I had a whole houseful of children to help care for and provide futures for.

Furtures with a hands on father, alive and well and there for them.

Why hadn't I felt Bella was enough to stay here for? She was my world, even before the boys, so it mystified me that I had failed to find her enough of a reason to stay safe.

My cellphone rang and i looked at the caller id.

Leonard?

Really?

I answered, but if he was asking me to rejoin and go back, it was not happening.

"Edward, I just wanted to let you know, we lost them all. Ambush, mortar attack, nobody survived. David, Peter, Charlotte, and all the others, all killed outright. I know it will be on the news any minute, I wanted to tell you myself."

I shut the phone and shivered.

Bella had been right.

She was always right.

My theoretical five years hadn't actually ended yet..

I would have been there.


	13. But This Is Not The End

Forevermore

But This Is Not The End

I sat in the dark and watched the documentary again, feeling bruised and heartsick as I watched the men and woman I had spent so many years with, working side by side. I think Peter and Charlotte hurt the most and I had known them the least, but seeing them working together, so happy to devote their lives to others, the unfortunate victims of war, it all came back.

Charlotte had planned to see a limit on how long they stayed as well, she was starting even back then to want to come home and have a baby and raise a family, but she and Peter agreed they were needed too much there at the time.

Now they were gone and sadly, the need for more workers to hand out more aid would never go away. They had done so much but their efforts had changed little. The people still died, the guns and mortars still blew up villages and cars and schools and hospitals, it was all so damned pointless. But some of us had felt compelled to do what we could, no matter how impotent our efforts had been.

David always knew it would end like this, for him, I suspected, and I was grateful he had encouraged me to listen to my heart and my Bella and come home when I did.

I looked down at my son, sleeping soundly in my arms.

Luke David Peter Cullen.

Named more as just a reminder of the two men who had been friends of mine, but now it was a tribute to them.

I shifted him into a better position, and tipped the bottle he still drank from even in his slumber.

Bella was weaning him so she could start the new baby.

Baby Jake.

She was charting her cycle and using plastic sticks rather like pregnancy test sticks, to know when she ovulated, and this month she has her first insemination.

I still feel confused and unsure but one thing I do know, I want the insemination to take rather than her having to proceed to IVF. I am supporting her 100% during the three inseminations, but I can't help feeling ill at the idea of her using drugs to make her ovaries produce a lot of eggs for collection to be used for the test tube baby, if it becomes the only chance left to her.

And they will create a lot of small Baby Jakes.

Will she settle for carrying just the one, if she knows there are other embryos frozen, waiting, wanting their chance?

I don't want us to go down that road. We have agreed, with Carlisle's guidance, that this should be Bella's last pregnancy.

Carrying Luke may have weakened the old c section scar from Josh's hurried delivery, and this next pregnancy won't do it any favors. Fortunately she has agreed with my father that another c section will be best, to be safest.

Luke's birth was an amazing and unforgettable experience and I would not have missed it for the world, I am so glad we had him. Delivering your own child, your own flesh and blood, it was up there in the best ten things to happen in my life.

Meeting Bella and falling in love with her, our first kiss, our first lovemaking, every happy day we shared together, was the top.

Having her accept me back after Jake was the second.

Our wedding, the third place getter.

Josh and Luke and Matt's additions to our lives, fourth.

Luke's amazing entry to the world, number five.

I hope I love this baby of Jake's as much as I love my own boys, I truly do. I don't want him to ever feel like he is not ours. Matt has slipped into our family and our hearts so seamlessly, I hope it will be the same for the new Baby Jake.

I lay Luke into his crib and turned the light out, and went to check that Josh and Matt were both sleeping safe and sound. Matt was flat on his back, as always , no doubt he had stared at the stars until his eyes had fluttered closed.

Josh was curled into a ball, his fists tightly holding his blanket, his thumb in his mouth. He had accepted Luke now, and no longer cried desolately for his mother, now the most important person in his life was Matt. He lit up the minute his big brother got home from school knowing Matt would play with him for hours until I got home.

Much as he loved Bella and I, we knew Matt was his idol.

I slipped into bed beside my wife and reached for her, needing her to sleep in my arms.

"Edward," she sighed in her sleep, rolling her body against mine.

My dick naturally stood to attention and wanted her.

When did it not?

Bella opened her eyes sleepily and stroked my erection.

I nuzzled her neck. I knew I was feeling needy and threatened somehow, with the insemination about to happen any day now.

You can take the man out of the cave but you cannot take the caveman out of the man, it seemed.

She was mine.

I should be the one giving her a baby.

I sighed, I was being selfish to the woman who had always, always been so selfless to me.

I felt around the miscellaneous junk in the drawer of my bedside table and found a condom and opened the packet. I will not sabotage her insemination.

I covered my erection with latex and slipped inside her, kissing her with all the passion I felt for her.

"I love you, Bella," I said, as my body slipped in and out of hers, bringing us both such exquisite pleasure. I know she is mine, I know it. I just need to be soothed and babied sometimes.

I understood how Josh had felt when he had his battle accepting Luke.

I always need to be number one with my Bella, as she is to me, and anything trying to take my place will always leave me feeling like this.

The feelings I had when she was with Jake, making love in my mind if not in reality.

This would be the first time his sperm got to enter inside her body.

I couldn't hate him, or this baby.

Jake never took her, and he could have, so many times, but he hadn't. He had loved her enough to wait and that told me he had not loved her as much I did, because there was no way I could have waited until our wedding. It nearly killed me waiting until she turned eighteen.

"Bella, I love you so much," I cried as I moved inside her, my hands under her bottom, pulling her closer, closer, until we were flush against one another.

No other man had ever loved her like this, like I was allowed to.

"Edward, I will always love you more than anyone else on the planet, you know that, I just have to do this for myself and for Jake. It doesn't diminish my love for you at all,in fact, you agreeing to me doing this makes me love you more, as if that were possible."

She kissed my lips and we dropped over the edge together, celebrating our love for one another yet again.

She understood me and accepted my moods, my unwarranted jealousy of a dead man, my need to be reassured that I was important, the most important.

"Would you not have the insemination if I asked you not to?" I whispered, not even game to say the words out loud.

Bella moved back and cradled my face.

"Edward, don't you want me to do this?" she asked, and the love in her eyes stopped my foolishness.

"Of course, I just wanted to know," I said lamely.

"I would never do anything you really felt was wrong for us," she replied.

"I do want you to do this, Bella, I need for you to be happy, and have no regrets," I answered.

"No more regrets, I regret ever leaving you, my love, and I always will, I'm so sorry, Edward," she cried, holding me closer again.

"Shh, love, that's all in the past. All forgotten, long since forgiven, as you forgave me for ever letting you go in the first place," I assured her.

I felt better, stronger.

We will have this baby and we will love it and we will be fine, absolutely fine.

I withdrew and pulled the condom off and looked down as I felt wetness in my hand.

Damn it.

I grabbed another condom out of the drawer and checked the use by date.

Fuck.

We didn't use condoms often, these had been in my drawer for years, probably.

I didn't say anything, as Bella had turned to leave the bed to go and shower.

That may not have been wise, that round of much wanted love making.

I just hoped the damn rubber had been intact while it was inside her.

Of course I did.

I wondered if wishful thinking could make a condom fail?

xxx xxx xxx

The test stick indicated today was the day, and I guiltily ate my toast and drank my coffee and wondered if I should confess to our little accident.

She was oblivious, as she nervously cleaned the kitchen and fed the boys and talked on the phone she juggled against her shoulder, to Alice who was minding the kids while we went for her appointment today. I cleared the table and washed Josh's face and kissed him as I placed him down on the floor.

I guess, what will be, will be, I can't take my sperm back from inside her, where it was not meant to be deposited today.

It was Jake's turn and she may never forgive me if she knew.

It was an accident, pure and simple, I told myself. These things happen, condoms are not 100% effective.

Even less so when they are so old they break.

xxx xxx xxx

We sat together in the waiting room while Bella's chart was located and finally she was called in. She stood and reached for my hand. I had agreed to be there for her, she wanted me at least in the room for any child she conceived.

The vial had been defrosted or whatever and a thin tube was inserted inside my wife, into her uterus, and we all watched it's progress on a scanner. Then the plunger of the syringe containing Jake's DNA was pressed and it was done. His sperm was inside her. It was done and now the only question in my head was, whose would make it to the egg first? Mine had a head start but she had not quite released an egg yet, that would happen any minute the technician assured us, so Bella was left to rest for a little while and I lay beside her on the gurney and rubbed her belly for luck.

I didn't even know what I was praying for, to be honest. Did I want another chance to have a daughter or did I want my wife to get the baby she needed to bring her closure? Maybe neither of us would win and we would be back next month.

I almost hoped that would be the case, so my damned conscience would be able to rest and not churn my insides up like they were now.

Bella wanted to stop and buy some of the most sensitive pregnancy test sticks on the way home so I grabbed a fresh packet of condoms and tossed them in the basket as well.

No more taking stupid chances.

Alice greeted us when we got back like we had been off on a trip to Mars and the boys were all clambering for attention so Matt took Josh out to the hoop, and I held Luke and fed him his bottle while the girls talked and Bella told Alice every detail of what they had done to her.

Alice screwed her nose up and said she would be doing it the natural way or not at all.

She and Jasper were talking babies, she was getting eager to bring another Monroe Jasper Whitlock into the world. Jasper hated his unused first name but accepted it was a long held family tradition and he felt he probably should keep it going.

When night fell and the boys were settled into their beds, I sat in our bed and wondered if I should have told my wife before the procedure, in case she would have wanted to wait until next month, but it was too late now. I felt like a little bit of a monster.

Bella walked out of her walk in closet wearing my high school sweater with CULLEN across the back. She had worn it to bed once we left high school but I had assumed she had tossed it away after we split up. Surely she never wore it around Jake? Then I reminded myself, Jake never slept in her bed, maybe she did.

"I didn't know you still had that," I commented as she slid into bed beside me.

"I couldn't throw it away, somehow."

"Did you still wear it, after.."

She nodded and slid closer.

Always mine, she had always been mine.

"Bella, the condom we used last night may have broken inside you, I am not sure," I said, suddenly needing her to know the truth.

She covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.

"Sorry, baby, I truly didn't even think about how old it was," I apologized.

'Edward, I don't think I want to try again if Jake's sperm didn't take today, it feels kind of wrong."

"Shh, you didn't do anything wrong, we agreed to do that," I said, kissing her face.

"I know, but doing it... I don't know what I want any more," she said, as I wiped her tears away.

She lay cuddled against me and when I felt her hand start to rub me, I looked down at her face.  
"Make love to me, Edward. No condom."

I did as she asked, glad the truth was out there.

Whatever happens, we will cope and be okay.

We will always be Edward and Bella, we know that by now.

xxx xxx xxx

The smiley face on the stick grinned at us both. I held Bella tightly and kissed her. She was pregnant. To whom, remained to be seen, but I had the better chance seeing my seed was in her first, and numerous times after, his had been deposited that once.

I had told Carlisle everything and he told me one thing I didn't know, that a woman who had sex or allowed another man's seed inside her in our case, was statistically more likely to conceive from the foreign sperm.

So, I guess Jake and I were on a level playing field.

I told Bella, as I was determined to always share everything with her, good, bad or indifferent.

Somedays she was misty eyed and lost in the past and she seemed to hope Jake would win, other days she cried for even allowing the insemination. All I could do was reassure her whoever fathered this baby was okay with me, I would love it and raise it along with our three boys.

Of course I hoped it was my baby and a girl, I was human and now the chance to have a little mini Bella of my own was back on the table, I couldn't help hoping it would happen.

xxx xxx xxx


	14. Cos You Still Have My Heartache

Forevermore

Cos You Still Have My Heartache

I flicked through my wedding album, my album of my first wedding, and looked at Jacob. I had loved Jacob all my life. True, I had not been in love with Jacob, not really, truly, forevermore in love with him, but I had given him the smaller part of my heart and I had loved him in a way that would have been enough, and would have been as much as most other people had, if they were lucky.

It was just that Edward existed, and kept most of my heart for himself. It was not a conscious decision on my part to ever love him as I did, and always would.

There had been a time when I wished I could end that love, kill that larger part of my heart, because loving him had been too hard and I couldn't cope with it any longer.

Loving Edward when he went away and left me each time had always been like being tossed off a cliff into the turbulent waters below.

Exciting, never boring, but dangerous, so dangerous.

So threatened with a horrible ending.

Loving Jacob had been like being rescued from the 'washing machine' under the surf, and taken to a calm and safe place, to be cared for and loved without having to give a lot back.

Selfish, sure, but so easy.

I didn't kill him, I know that but it still makes me feel guilty, knowing if I had let him be and refused to go on that first date, he would be here now.

I would, no doubt, be with Edward, he would have given in in time and come home to me, and we would be like we are now, parents of loving and healthy children.

But I knew, deep down, if I had still married Jacob and Edward had come back afterwards, as he would have, that he was right.

We would have killed Jake.

I would have been torn in two, but not in half, because when a heart breaks it doesn't break evenly.

There would always have been that larger half, the Edward half, that would have won.

I would have spent the rest of my life feeling so bad for Jacob and what I did to him, how I left him, got divorced from him, and he would never have done anything to deserve being treated that way.

His only crime was to love me and accept me, warts and all.

He knew, he always knew, I loved Edward more.

How many men would accept that massive handicap and love and marry a woman, knowing she really, deep down, wanted a different man in her bed, a different pair of arms around her?

Not too many.

We would have killed him as surely as that bullet did.

Charlie had been jubilant when they matched the bullet and the gun that fired it, to another used in a similar car jacking, and the criminal had been killed himself in the botched attempt. The driver had been an aggressive man who had already been through being mugged twice and having a previous car stolen and he was not going down without a fight. He had been shot in the side but he still managed to pull his own gun and shoot his attacker dead with a single shot. He had recovered from his injury, unlike my first husband.

It hadn't meant a lot until forensics ran one of their checks and found the gun had been used before, in several other shootings, including the murder of Jake. So, the murderer, the man who took my Jacob was dead, but I felt no jubilation.

It didn't bring back that beautiful man with his black eyes that shone for me, his gentle large hands that had touched me for so many years from babyhood onwards, held me tight when I cried over another man, that face, full of love, that wonderful long hair that shimmered down his shoulders and back.

It is entirely possible to love two men, Jake had been right about that.

If Edward had never come home, if he had stayed overseas,if he had...

No.

If he had not come home, Jake and I would have been together all our lives and been happy enough. Nothing like how Edward and I are, how we feel, how we live for one another...

But we would have had our own Baby Jake and maybe his sister or brother, now I was wondering if I could only carry boys for some reason, even though this child inside is only my third, I know already he is a boy.

I just feel it.

Carlisle will tell me, when we have the scan.

Edward wants to know, and much as he says he he has no preference about it's gender, I know he wanted us to have a daughter together and he will be sad if this is the girl, not one of his own biological babies. I feel this is Baby Jake, my gut tells me Jake won this round.

I am quite confident that Edward will love Jake's baby but he will love it more easily if it is a boy.

It's just a fact.

xxx xxx xxx

EPOV

Carlisle moved the transducer around Bella's belly and she and I both sat with our eyes glued to the screen. A boy. She was right.

"From the skeletal structure, I think we can safely say Baby Jake is on his way," announced my father.

My heart sank, but I smiled and hugged my wife. She would feel like she had achieved what she needed to, when Baby Jake was born.

"Still think it needs to be delivered by c section?" I asked.

Carlisle was concentrating hard on the screen, moving the transducer back and forth.

"There's a second baby. A twin. I don't think it's identical, Bella."

"Twins?" she said, her voice both full of awe and surprise, but also worried.

"Lay over on your right side and I will be able to get a better look."

I helped Bella roll and my father smiled.

"That's better. She is laying behind him and he is a much larger baby so he obscures her from the front."

"She?" I repeated.

"Yes, see the two white lines? Female genitalia under construction," he confirmed.

"Is she a Quileute?" I asked, holding my breath.

"I can't tell. The features are much more prominent in males. Time will tell. She looks fine though. Everything in the right place. A little girl to be spoiled and adored by all her brothers," he said with a smile.

"Dad, is there any way to find out if she is mine?" I asked him quietly as Bella dressed.

"Of course, but in these circumstances I would advise against it. The wound of her scan is thinning, as we feared. We need to keep these babies in for as long as possible and the male is quite a large baby. I fear we are looking at an early delivery but we can do all that's possible to keep the pregnancy going. Rest will be a major factor. Doing any invasive tests will threaten the chances of the pregnancy holding. She is whoever she is, Edward.

Bella needs to be off her feet as much as possible and I will be admitting her for bed rest sometime down the line."

I helped Bella into the car and she sat with her vitamins and brochures on bed rest and eating nutritiously for three. It would be a battle, keeping everyone safe and well from here on but I would be doing my best.

I rang an agency and had them send us a full time live in housekeeper and a Nanny for the two little boys who needed a lot of hands on attention still. Bella would be a spectator from this point onwards. No lifting or carrying Luke or Josh.

She didn't argue, which surprised me and told me she did appreciate the risks she and the babies were faced with.

I sat the boys down and explained Mommy was not allowed to do much now, and she had to be kept quiet and happy, so noisy games were outside only, and if Mommy was asleep, we were all to leave her be. She needed lots of peace and quiet, so she could grow them a new brother and a baby sister.

My heart so longed for the girl to be mine. I had always wanted a daughter, and now there was a 50/50 chance I may get one, so long as we managed to keep those babies inside long enough for them both to be viable.

Bella lay in my arms and read the pamphlets.

"We have to abstain, Edward, how do we manage that?" she asked, and I kissed her quickly and rubbed her shoulder with my hand.

"We can be good, Bella, we managed to go without sex for over two years when we were apart, this is just a few months, four at the most."

"Edward, did you really not touch another woman all that time? I understand if you did. We were not together, you were not cheating on me."

"I told you about the woman in the alley, the only other woman I went near was Lauren. I slept in her bed some nights when she had a particularly bad night or I did. But I never so much as kissed her, I promise you."

"Did you want to?" she asked timidly.

"No, never. All I cared about was you, all I saw was you. I was in a bad and fucked up place, I kind of thought if I waited you would come back, and if I didn't then you wouldn't."

"I would have, no matter what you did."

"Bella, I am not sorry. The only regret is that I didn't stand up and be counted that night you told me you were leaving. It was such a shock. I thought we had endured the worst part when I came home shot. I foolishly thought, well, the worst has happened and I lived through it, I will be okay now and you will accept not every shot is a fatal one."

I really couldn't believe what I had put her through.

She reached up and stroked the sliver scars on my shoulder, and I shrugged. They hurt in a weird and ghostly way, not all of the flesh there had full feeling and some nerves had been injured but nothing bad enough to limit my movements.

"I spent an entire day thinking you were dead," she said, her voice full of remembered terror.

"I know, baby. I tried to get word to you and Mom but things were pretty crazy. I just wanted to get home as soon as I could. There was nobody available to call until the Red Cross arrived and phoned Esme."

"Worst day and night of my life, including the night Jake died."

"Really?" I guess I was the one who never acknowledged how deeply her feelings for me really ran. I always assumed I loved her more than she loved me because I could never walk away from her.

But I did, in a way, every time I got on that plane.

God, I had fucked us up so badly back then.

I guess I have had my turn at fucking up and now it is up to me to get everything right from this point onwards.

Including accepting this little girl wholeheartedly, even if she is born with a head full of silky black hair.

I have no problem with Baby Jake, we have been waiting for him for such a long time, really, and now he is really coming to join our family.

Our new housekeeper, Siobhan, and our Nanny, Tanya, are arriving tomorrow, until then I am on Nanny duty.

xxx xxx xxx

Siobhan arrived first and there was the aroma of bread and cakes baking within the hour, as she rearranged Bella's kitchen to suit herself. Bella didn't care, the babies within needed her to be calm and she was determined to do her best for them both. She sat and read her tattered old books, and spent hours watching the boys. Luke was running, having not bothered to do the whole shaky walking thing. One minute he was cruising around furniture, next thing he was off and running after his brother.

Our housekeeper was a large Irish lady in her fifties and she knew her stuff and the house was spotless within a week. She had rules for the boys, and me, and we didn't consider not obeying. Luke was allowed to ignore them but he was the only exception, even Josh was expected to be a big boy, and tow the line.

Tanya was a worry. Stunning, slim, sexy, and interested in me, the very worst combination of things. Bella was watchful and I made sure to never be alone in any room with the woman, or to speak in any way that implied I was even slightly interested in what she had to offer.

"Do you want me to get someone else?" I asked my wife after a week of exhaustively avoiding her hands.

"Do you want to get someone else?" she replied.

"I think I do. It's not that I don't trust myself with her, but we have to face facts. I am going to be pretty darm horny in time, I don't want her ever catching me off guard. I would never do anything to risk hurting you but I think she needs to go."

So, I rang the agency and asked for a replacement, someone older maybe, and they told me they had nobody else except a new Nanny, of the male persuasion.

I thought about it, there was no reason a man couldn't mind kids as well as a female and I would never be tempted to go anywhere near his bed.

Paul was definitely not what I expected. To start with, I kind of thought a male Nanny would be effeminate, if not gay, though there was no reason to assume either. Paul was all man, and Siobhan thanked me for ridding us of the "Predator" as she had named Tanya and for replacing her with the 'eye candy."

"So, Paul, tell me about yourself," I asked as he sat down for our interview.

He accepted the coffee Siobhan had so thoughtfully made, and tried to top up three times already.

"I have worked as a nurse for ten years, mainly in pediatrics, I thought it would be a nice change to hang with some healthy kids for a while. I intend going back to nursing one day, in maybe five years or so. I just need a change and a break from the heartache. Nurses are on the front line, bonding with their charges, it's beyond sad when we lose one."

I could understand that.

He was great with Josh and Luke liked him already. He had long black hair and was a Quileute and of course, he had known Jake even though he was younger than him.

"So, you know Billy, then? How is he coping?" I asked.

"It was very hard for the first year. We were all so used to Jake being there, always, and he has left a big hole. Being the next in line as our Chief, his loss was a loss to us all.  
"Jacob was the next Chief?" I asked.

"Yeah, if only he had left a son behind, that would have given Billy hope."

Billy knew Bella had fought for the sperm samples and won, but as far as I knew, she had not told anyone but my parents the true father of her boy twin, and maybe the girl twin too.

I felt it was something we would need to discuss and decide how to handle if Paul was to be living in the house with us.

There seemed to be no reason not to hire him so once he chatted with the boys and decided he could easily handle them, and then spoke to Bella, we agreed to a trial.

Tanya flounced out the door at the end of the day, with her severance check in hand, soothing the hurt.

"She was not happy," Siobhan told me.

"I paid her a big enough compensation for dismissing her," I retorted.

"Yes, but she had set her sights on being Mistress of this house and ousting your wife. She had tried before. I have heard plenty of stories about Miss Tanya. She doesn't do the job because she likes children, she is always looking for a lonely, unappreciated Daddy to comfort and steal."

Much as I figured.

Bella and I lay together talking in bed, both relieved Tanya was gone. Now we could concentrate on other worries.

"So, what's the plan, do we tell Billy or not?"

"I didn't want to, until the baby was born safely, and not at all if I lost it. Maybe we can ask Paul what he thinks is best."

Paul was astonished when Bella told him the whole story. He knew she had married Jake, of course, but he also knew they had never had a child together so this was mind blowing news. He saw our dilemma and suggested we talk to Sam Uley, seeing he was now the Chief.

Bella had not ever known Jacob's position in his tribe and I think she was starting to regret what she had done, having this baby boy. It had seemed cut and dried, just something between the two of us, but it had far more reaching consequences.

Paul brought Sam and his wife Emily to visit and we all sat down to discuss what we should do.

"I think Billy needs to know, especially as Paul and I know. I realize you are only wanting to protect him because of the medical condition and if the twins don't make it, it will be a blow to us all, but Billy deserves to know a little of Jake lives on."

So, it was decided. Bella broke the news to her father, Charlie, first, then he brought Billy to visit.

The men both sat there looking incredulous.

"I can't even begin to understand why you are doing this, having Jacob's son and daughter, but I am very glad you are," he said.

Okay, time to bite the bullet.

"There is a chance the female baby is mine, we were not as careful as we intended to be, and only the boy has the obvious characteristics of your race. The girl may not be Jacob's."

"Is that possible? To be pregnant to two men at once? That's the craziest thing I have ever heard." said Charlie, scratching his head.

"No, Charlie, the craziest thing is me becoming a grandfather years after my son died."

"I see your point, and you are right. Wait until you explain this all to Renee, I can't wait to hear her reaction."

"I was hoping you might do that, dad." Bella asked.

Charlie put his hands up in mock surrender.

"Oh no, I am not getting in the middle of that conversation. You tell her, and stand back and cop the flack, Miss. You did this, you get to break it to your mother."

So, after they left, Bella phoned her Mom and bit her lip as she waited for Renee to pause and take a breath. She was always full of news of the wonderful Phil and his career, which seemed to be going nowhere fast.

She finally let Bella speak, then we sat and waited.

"But how can that be?" she asked quietly.

Bella explained the circumstances and Renee was openly shocked.

"I can't believe you did this. You have Edward and your sons, why would you want to have Jacob's child? It sounds rather selfish and greedy to me."

"Mom, I miss Jake, so much. I am hoping by having his son, it may fill the void he left."

"But you and Edward plan to raise the child, away from his tribe?"

"Of course, but I hadn't thought of that. He will be our child as much as the other's."

"But he isn't Edward's, Bella. He is Quileute royalty. You can't keep him from his heritage."

"Mom, we will work something out," Bella promised.

I took the phone and explained how important it was for Bella to rest and remain unstressed and Renee agreed to delay voicing her opinion again until after the babies were safely born.


	15. And I Still Have Your Sweater

Forevermore

And I Still Have Your Sweater

BPOV

I had no idea what a mess I was creating. I had only thought of Jake's baby as mine and Edward's, not as Billy's grandson and the tribe's Chief. Jacob should have told me. That fact alone would probably have stopped me ever doing this. I had opened a can of worms I never knew existed.

"Drat you, Jacob," I said to his photo as I stretched out and relaxed as much as one could, with two active babies fighting for space. I had never anticipated twins and it worried me a lot, as my belly became more swollen and tighter. Carlisle had kept me fairly trim in myself while carrying Luke and he had never expanded my belly as much as Josh had, so the scar was never compromised.

This time, it felt and looked stretched to capacity and I was only just seven months pregnant today. I had followed my Father-In-Laws orders and rested day and night. I was sick of resting but I would no doubt look back and wonder how stupid that was, in the future when I had two babies to feed and look after. We intended keeping both Siobhan and Paul on as long as we needed them which I thought may be until the twins went away to college, but definitely until they started school.

I had certainly bitten off more than I could chew here.

Renee's words had stung but I knew she was shocked and I suppose had Edward lost a bride and wanted me to carry her child so he had some part of her to cling to for the rest of his life, I would have been reluctant.

I hoped so much the girl was Edward's. That would mean so much to him and be his reward for supporting me wanting to have Baby Jake.

I was not sorry to be carrying Jacob's son, I had wanted it for a long time now, but I was sorry I had not thought it through more and considered everyone it was impacting on.

Carlisle was expecting me in for yet another scan today and it was the only outing I ever got, so I looked forward to it. I didn't want to be stuck in the hospital until delivery, as it was possible that was still months away.

Weeks anyway.

Edward was working but he was ready to take more time off as soon as I asked him to. We were really lucky he had his trust find from his grandparents and money was not an issue. He had never told me about the money, until we were married. I had been shocked, I never wanted to marry a wealthy man but I had always wanted to marry Edward so I had to accept we had a lot more money than the average town.

And I was glad now, because we needed the household help. Luke was so fast on his feet and Josh was inclined to be bored when Matt was at school, so it was wonderful watching Paul keep them both entertained and amused. He had Josh reading letters and writing his name already, and as Paul played piano, he continued the practice sessions with the boys when Luke was down for his afternoon nap.

We had noticed so many changes in Matt, he was becoming the typical teenager, into sports and cars and girls. That seemed so weird, he was so emotionally young when he arrived here and now he was so different, so caught up with boys his real age. He remained ever grateful for everything we bought him and couldn't believe how much he now owned, clothes , shoes, games, he was learning to use a computer so Edward had bought him a laptop and he was spending a lot of time online, like all boys his age. I wondered if he had discovered porn yet. No doubt Emmett would provide all details of the best sites if he asked.

I moaned as I stood up and Edward was beside me in a flash.

"What are you doing home?" I asked.

"What are you doing standing up?" he retorted.

"I need to pee and get ready to go see your father. I thought Siobhan was taking me."

"I want to see the babies again," he explained.

"You want to check and see if our daughter is yours," I translated and he put his arms around me as I returned to the bedroom.

"She is mine, in every way that counts, but yes, I want to see if she still has no sign of being Jacob's issue."

"Is it more likely that both twins came from the one act?" I asked.

"Nope, it's about an even chance either way," he replied.

Edward had spent so many hours researching twins, especially twins of different fathers. There were more cases than I would have thought but usually they were the result of a wife cheating but also still having sex with her husband as well, the same day as when she was with her lover.

I suppose there will be people who assume that is what happened in our case, if the girl is pale and fair, but whatever. If Edward can cope with the reactions of strangers but know the truth, I can too. I love these babies already and can't wait to meet them,

Carlisle did the usual full checkup and I lay and watched their images appear on the screen.

The boy is so big, I guess he is taking after Jacob and not me, but the girl is rather tiny.

Edward cannot take his eyes off her and Carlisle searches every inch of her, looking for markers to prove her parentage and once again, nothing shows one way or the other. Her feet and fingers are long, so are both Jake's and Edward's. Her skull reveals nothing, and it is once again, a case of waiting until the birth.

As Edward slept that night, I started to panic about the girl twin being Jake's. It would be okay, I assured myself. Edward wants a girl to raise and he is getting his wish, so whoever fathered her, it will be okay. God, I hope he is okay if she is Jacob's. I have no gut feeling either way. Her presence at all was a complete surprise, I had known about Baby Jake and it had been a shock finding out she was coming along as well.

I could feel Edward's erection between us and I started stroking it, more for my own comfort than his. I couldn't do a lot for him now, he was restricted to hand jobs or oral but he had to pull out before ending as semen can set things off in theory, no matter where it enters the body.

He opened his eyes as his hips bucked of their own violation, and he smiled and moved himself closer, kissing me deeply.

I love this man so much.

He placed his hand over my own and took over the work, but I kept my hand in place, knowing he enjoyed the feeling of my hand against him. I smiled as his face changed, from happy to desperate to fulfilled as he came against my belly.

"God, baby, that was good, thank you."

I smiled and kissed him again. I know he wishes he could do the same for me but contractions could start if he gave me an orgasm and we are doing so well, according to Carlisle. I may spontaneously combust if I have to go without much longer. Edward caressed my naked boobs gently, so at least I had the thrill of his hands on me. His touch is so soothing and gentle that I fall asleep before he stops.

Morning and it's the usual chaos, toddlers yelling for attention,and life begins again. I shower and dress, though not a lot fits me anymore, but Edward's high school sweater has become my favorite outfit, so I slip it on over my maternity bra that feels like a prison cell, and a pair of loose sweats and prepare to veg out for another day.

xxx xxx xxx xxx

Jacob has visited me in my dreams a lot lately, maybe because I am carrying his son. I saw him walking towards me along First Beach at La Push,holding out his hands in welcome and I tried to run into them but the sand slowed me down and kept me moving at a snail's pace. As I got closer, I realized something was about to happen and I waded faster, and as the tips of our fingers touched, he disappeared.

Maybe he knew better now than to trust me.

As sad as I was over his death, I am grateful he didn't live to be spurned by me in our wedding bed, as I sincerely doubt I ever had what it took to fake enthusiasm for his body to enter mine. As always my brain would have been full of what I lost when I left Edward.

Rose had been right, I was unenthusiastic about dating Jake that first year and we didn't go out much at all. I turned him down more often than accepting his offers, and lived in fear of us progressing in time as couples do. It wasn't until he admitted he felt sex was something to be saved for the wedding night that I became more enthusiastic towards him, and relaxed in his company. I liked him a lot more that second year, knowing there was no pressure on me to perform.

We kissed, a lot, he was a lovely kisser, so warm and sweet, and he had such lovely eyes, I never shut my own in case my mind started pretending he was someone else, and that would just be unacceptable. Jacob was an all round lovely person and my wish was that he had not dated me, but had found a woman who loved him completely for what he was, a really wonderful caring human being. Not as I loved him, as second best, like some big fluffy obedient dog who kept me safe and warm now my true love was gone.

On the other hand, his greatest wish was to marry me, and I had made that dream come true for him. For a few short hours, Jacob had what he had always wanted so I guess he died happy.

I didn't deserve him, I know that, why was his love wasted on me? I knew the second I walked down that aisle that it was wrong and a stronger person would have walked away or rather, never let it get that far in the first place.

How hurt he would have been had my secret fantasy of Edward swooping in at the last moment, taking me away, happened. I had been a really bad person, I now realised, to treat my very best friend after Edward, like that. Had he used me in the same way, I would have hated him forever. I hope he doesn't hate me now, I hope he is happy and I hope he thinks I loved him enough.

I have to have this little boy inside me, and make up for my many sins I committed on his father.

Jake's second dream after our wedding, was to become a father to a child he and I created together and I want his dream to come true.

I am torn, always, because I love Edward more, but loving him doesn't diminish Jake. How lucky I am, to have known the love of two very good men. They both created a world where I always knew how cherished I was, how loved, and wanted and needed.

You can't ask more than that.

My days are long and boring but Josh sits with me and draws pictures and Luke comes in regularly to pat my face and kiss me sloppy kisses. My boys are wonderful, all I should ever want but Bella has always been greedy and wanted more than her fair share.

I know that.

Paul has made a calender and Josh crosses off each day as we sit together to eat lunch.

Five weeks have passed since my last full scan with Edward at my side and tomorrow I have my 37 week check up and no doubt, another scan. Carlisle keeps a close watch on my scar and it is under so much pressure I am beginning to fear waking up with my abdomen splitting open and the babies falling out onto the floor.

I look up as my beautiful husband walks in and tosses his briefcase into the closet.

"That's it, I have taken a year off and won't be working even then if you still need me."

"I will always need you," I inform him and I watch in agony as he slowly strips his clothes off, oblivious to how it makes me feel, seeing him naked.

"Dad wants me to take you in tonight, he is scheduling the c section tomorrow, before we get to the really dicey part."

"But he said I had a check-up tomorrow and he would decide then," I protested.

"Bella, it's time, Baby. Those babies have to come out and live in the big wide world like the rest of us. I can sleep in the hospital with you tonight if you want."

"I want," I grumbled. I had hoped to give my man some action tonight, before the inevitable drought once the babies are born. I had asked Carlisle if the real thing would be okay, just this once, seeing the end is immanent, and I wonder if that's why he is doing this now. To cut me off at the pass.

He had cautioned me we had come this far and should not do anything to rock the boat but this darn boat desperately needs rocking. I reached a hand out to grab my favorite part of my husband and he grabbed my wrist.

"Dad warned me you were thinking of being a very bad girl.. Bella, it's over tomorrow and soon we will be back, Baby, doing anything and everything you want."

"Once the scar heals. I hate that, I won't be aware of anything but the pain , I want you now while I still feel like me."

"I know, sweetheart, believe me. Dad said we can have sex in the morning before the operation seeing we will be in a safe setting so behave and wait for that."

We said goodnight to the boys and warned them we were sleeping out of the house so not to panic tomorrow when Siobhan was the only one they saw apart from Paul. He lived in, and had his own quarters at the back downstairs as Siobhan did, so he agreed to sleep in the guestroom between Luke and Josh's bedrooms until I was home again.

The nursery was ready, with it's pink trimmed bassinet and blue trimmed copy beside it. They were new, I wanted everything new and perfect for these, our final babies.

xxx xxx xxx xxx

Carlisle checked eveything twice like some Santa Claus with his list, and I asked him boldly if my husband and I could indulge tonight.

"I guess there is no reason, I am probably being overcautious but be aware, you will be checked every hour on the hour so make sure there are no shenanigans going on when the nurse is due. I am on call tonight so will hopefully be asleep in the on call room, and she will come get me if there's the slightest sign of trouble. Edward, pretend she was your high school sweetheart and you were trying to please her but keep her safe. No actual penetration. Oh, wait, you two have been there and done that, probably from a far earlier age than I approve of."

I grinned, and Edward looked uncomfortable. We had got up to all sorts, and they were all wonderfully satisfying to a couple who had never had actual sex to compare it to.

My hospital bed was wide enough for two and I snuggled down with my husband after my shower, which Edward had helped me with. He had refused any form of shower sex, saying it was far too dangerous in my condition.

God, I will be so glad to be just me again, without babies on board. I want my body back and my libido agrees.

Once the sounds of activity quietened, I reached for a sleepy Edward who was instantly alert the moment my hand touched his body.

"No penetration," he warned, rubbing one hand across my breasts and the other was massaging my mound, as I stroked his rock hard shaft.

"How should we do this?" I asked, realizing this was going to be awkward, we had a far smaller bed than ours at home and I was so much larger across the girth this time.

"Roll over onto your side, facing the window," Edward suggested, and moved his body in closer behind mind. He lifted my upper leg and I felt him stroke along my very neglected and eager folds, getting in close. His hand was twirling and tweaking a nipple and my ladies parts instantly drenched. God, I wanted him so badly.

His lips were on my neck as he spoke words of devotion and love and I could hardly move much myself, so he took up a faster pace and I was gone, over the edge, in minutes.

"It has been way too long," I sighed as he continued his stroking as my body pulsed gleefully against him. I felt his seed shoot on the sheet between my legs and he groaned in relief.

I cannot wait to have us back, properly, all night long.

We both slept but I dreamed about Edward and he was making long, delicious proper love to me on the beach, I could even feel the soft foamy water wash over my thighs...

Fuck.

"Edward," I cried, shaking his shoulders.

"Hmm, what's happening?"

"My waters just broke," I told him, glad we were here in the hospital.

Edward sat up and mauled his hair and reached for the buzzer.

Carlisle and the nurse were there instantly, and he ordered Edward out of my bed and examined me as I lay prone with my knees bent up.

"Bella, you are almost seven centimetres, I know you would prefer a natural delivery, maybe we can try. Get me the mobile scanner and I will check the scar."

The scan showed the pressure had decreased as the babies were moving down and Baby Jake was no longer in his low transverse lie that he had adopted the whole pregnancy so everything was looser.

"Okay, I say we go for high tech natural but in the high risk delivery suite and we get an epidural in just in case the c section becomes necessary."

Edward was excited, he loved natural births, and he hadn't held out any hope of this being one so maybe we get a bonus. He left to get gowned up and was back beside me as soon as I was settled in the delivery room.

Carlisle and six other staff were crowded in, and Edward sat beside me and held my hand. There was no way he could be part of a delivery as risky as this one, but at least he was there to watch.

"Okay, time to push, can you feel any pressure?" asked Carlisle, down the business end of things.  
"Nope, nothing," I replied, glad of that. The contractions had been massive and the squeezing much worse than I remembered from last time, so once that needle entered my spine and took away the pain, I was a very happy camper.

"Okay, the boy's head is crowning, you can do this, Bella. I need you to push with everything you have."

Edward supported my back and I pushed for my life and Carlisle smiled and encouraged me.

"Okay, pant a little, let's see how well you did,"

We all waited and Carlisle looked pleased as a thin cry sounded and a nurse hurriedly did something down there.

"Heads out, as you can hear now we just need these shoulders out."

He did all the work and I saw forceps being passed to him.

"Just need to get these shoulders out," he told us and I was very glad I felt nothing as he did whatever one did with them, then he handed them back as he pulled the baby boy out with his hands.

"Baby Jake!" said Edward, excitedly as the beautiful black haired boy started to scream at being dragged out into the world. Edward kissed my cheek and stood with his hands held out to take the baby and the nurse wrapped him quickly and gave him to him.

"Baby Jake, Bella. He is here at last."

He cuddled the baby closely then lay him across my chest for a minute so I could see his face and his jet black eyes were gazing into mine.

"Hello, little Jacob," I said softly.

For us, this was the right thing to do, no matter what anyone else may think. We wanted this little boy in our lives and Edward's heart was large enough to accept him inside it.

"Okay, part two. We need to get this little miss out now," reminded Carlisle.

Edward kissed the baby's face and handed him to the nurse who took him to weigh and wash.

"We need a big push, okay, good, excellent. Have a rest. Big breath, now again, Bella, push into your bottom, good girl. Okay, pant."

I panted and Edward kissed me and held my hand tightly.

"Edward, the neck is clear, no cord, do you want to do the honors?"

He was gone at inhuman speed and next thing Carlisle was talking him through the delivery of our one and only daughter.

As she slid into his hands he cried out in delight.

"It is a girl, Bella, and she is perfect!"

He held her while Carlisle cut the cord and a nurse cleared her airways and her little cry filled the room, joining in with her brother's louder bellow.

"Music to my ears," laughed Edward, cradling our daughter.

He helped the nurse swaddle her then walked up and lay her in my arms. We looked at one another. There was still no clue, if anyone, she looked like me.

Edward grinned.

"I honestly don't care where she came from, she is perfect. She is ours. She is mine as much as yours, no matter what."

"Do you want a DNA test done, I can take cord blood for that?" Carlisle asked.

"No," said Edward, smiling into my eyes. "We know whose baby she is. Ours."

He sat down and peered at her little face and she opened her eyes and he grinned.

"Finally, brown eyes, as beautiful as her mother's."

I was glad it was over, and the babies were safe and most of all, glad Edward was so happy.I had taken such a risk doing this to us, but it had paid off. I had everything I could ever want and it hadn't cost me my husband, and that's all that mattered.

xxx xxx xxx

The next few days were full of visitors, including a different Renee, she was captivated by the sight of Baby Jake and she finally got it. Why I had needed to do this. She held him in her arms and looked at his round pretty face and shook her head.

"He's not a clone, right?"

"No, Mom, he is a natural child of Jacob and I."

"It's just that he looks completely like Jacob. I have Jake's hospital photo somewhere, I will find it for you at let you see for yourself. This is eerie, it really is like having him back."

Edward was equally absorbed with each baby and held the boy as much as the girl. I was the one obsessively holding her in the natural light of the window, looking for a sign. Her eyes were muddy brown, her hair was brown with maybe a tint of red but my hair had that tint, it was not the copper of my husband's hair. Her body was tiny and like my own, only her fingers were longer and slimmer.

There was nothing, no clue.

Edward had accepted her completely and growled at my suggestion maybe it would be better to know, for sure.

"What's to know, she is our baby, any baby of yours is our baby, Bella. Just love her and think of a name. I can't believe we finally have a girl and she doesn't have a name."

The reason I had no name for her was obvious, I had waited to see whose she was, I wanted to go with a Quileute name if she was Jake's.

Carlisle had talked to me, when I was briefly alone, and told me he had no idea, he had delivered babies of mixed parents before, some looked like baby Jake and some came out with blond hair and blue eyes, if that was in the other parent's lineage.

She had no characteristics of being Jake's but none of Edward's either.

It seemed we may never know.

Edward knew all he wanted to, she was perfect and she was the girl he had always wanted, so she was his, regardless.

When the day came to go home, Edward carried each baby to the car and strapped the carriers in, and opened my door for me.

"Alice and Rose are waiting at home. Bella, I want to do just one thing, it involves, Baby Jake and myself, can I take him somewhere briefly, after I take you and our daughter home?"

"Of course," I agreed, wondering if he was taking the boy to Billy. Charlie and Billy had visited every day and I saw Billy say something to Edward yesterday. Maybe Quileute boys have some ritual involved in their homecoming.

xxx xxx xxx

Alice and Rose greeted us with our boys, and helped me and the baby girl from the car, and Edward explained he and Baby Jake would be right back and meet us inside.

So many eager arms wanting to hold Bethany Marie Cullen, as Edward had named her.

xxx xxx xxx

Edward stepped out of the car and approached the gravestone that marked where Jacob slept.

He sat down carefully on the cold marble cover and lay the baby carefully on his blanket, so the child lay approximately in his father's arms.

"Jake, I would like you to meet your son, Jacob William Black junior. Thank you for allowing me the honor of raising this child for you. Know he will be as loved as any of my own sons, and he will always remind us of you and the richness you added to our lives. I know Bella loved you, Jake, and while it hurt like hell at the time, it made me stronger and made me a better person, like she deserved. Thank you for loving her, Jake, nobody ever suffered from too much love and I know you loved her as much as I do.

Sometimes I even have the grace to admit, you were the better man and much better for her than I was, Jacob, because you always put her first, something I had to learn to do.

Be happy, Jake, watch over this child, thank you for him."

Edward carried the baby back to his car and strapped him back inside.


	16. And Things They Will Get Better

Forevermore

And Things They Will Get Better (Epilogue)

Edward tossed the little girl with the thick auburn ringlets into the air. She was the most beautiful child ever, and apart from his Bella, although he would never admit this, he loved her more than anyone else in the world. He had always been proud of his sons and he loved them dearly but fathering a delicate little blossom like this girl was even more amazing.

Her brown eyes flashed with joy as he caught her and lowered her to the sand.

Bella, the love of his life, was running along the beach, Baby Jake in her arms, chuckling as he bounced with her every step.

She was truly happy now, Edward knew that. She had everything she had ever wanted as he did , too.

To be honest, just having Bella had always been enough for him but their children enhanced them and made them better people. And they brought incredible joy into their lives.

Paul was out on his surfboard, teaching Matt how to stand as the surf rolled them closer to shore, and both Edward and Bella thought of Jacob and the lessons he had given her in her teenage years.

Jacob was still there, all around them, but now he was real and touchable in the little black eyed black haired toddler who laughed in glee when his mother lowered him by his hands so his toes hit the cold water at the edge of the shore.

Edward had learned that he was indeed Bethany's biological father while Bella and the babies were still in the hospital. Billy Black had laid a hand gently on the sleeping baby girl and told him the child was not of his tribe, therefore she was Edward's.

It meant more to him than any blood/DNA test, Billy was the Chief and he knew these things.

Time had proved him correct, the brown hair had thinned as she grew into a plump, pretty baby and it was replaced by his own coppery sheen amongst the new locks.

She was a mixture of both his beloved and himself.

Edward liked to think it would not have mattered if the child had been Jake's, but he was grateful he had never been put to the test.

The dilemma about Baby Jake being next in line as Chief had been resolved by the council. The Chief had always been a full blood Quileute and as Baby Jake had been born to Bella, he did not qualify. That did not make him any less important to his grandfather, who agreed with the council's ruling, and Sam Uley's son, also named Jacob, was officially next in line.

Bella and Edward may not always live here, close to the Rez, so it was better this way, all concerned agreed.

Edward handed Bethany over to her mother and scooped Baby Jake onto his shoulders and ran along in the shallow water, making the child whoop in delight. Edward took his promise to Jacob very seriously and he loved the child his wife had needed to complete their lives.

He had no regrets, other than the one obvious, glaring one, but she was his, had always been his and he had lived long enough to get her back, so that was all that mattered.

Matt ran from the water and flexed his muscles as he carried his board past a group of giggling girls from the Rez. One in particular seemed to be here, at the beach, every Saturday when the family came to enjoy the warmer weather.

Coincidence?

he thought not.

Matt was always sending someone a text and Edward had a pretty good idea it was this slim, pretty russett skinned girl who was watching every move his oldest son made. Sure enough, as Matt sat down in the sand at the rocky area of shoreline, she just happened to walk by and caught his eye and Edward grinned as she sat beside him, and they started talking and soon after, laughing.

Oh yeah, the boy had the Cullen charm.

Josh and Luke were chasing the small breakers in and out and squealing at the coldness of the water. Both green eyed and copper haired, they were Edward's mini-me's and he adored them both, as much as he adored the twins.

Well, maybe Bethany was a little extra special, being the girl he craved for so long. Bella was holding their daughter as she drifted off to sleep, walking slowly along the water's edge.

"Mama" shrieked Jacob as they ran up close to the girls, and he held his father's hair tightly to keep upright.

"Hey Baby Jake," she smiled at him. he smiled and his white teeth were as blinding as his namesake's.

He was the boy with two fathers. He may have never known Jake, but Edward was always there, always parenting him as he did the others so she never worried he would feel out of place or different.

One day, he would ask and she would explain. She was making him a book , full of photos of herself and his biological father and also of Edward, as both men were of equal importance in the story.

The photos chronicled the three of them growing up, there were photos of the three together, at Renee's, at parties as they got older, at the beach, then just Jake and Bella, or Edward and Bella.

Alice had taken one photo shortly before the wedding, of the three sitting having one of those civilized coffee get together's that both broke Edward's heart more but also fed him enough to keep him going.

Both men were gazing at Bella, with open faced love, and fortunately she had just spied Alice and was facing the camera so no secrets were revealed.

The wedding photos, the last she had of Jacob, showed his father as he was, happy, kind, beautiful, full of love and joy and life.

The newspaper cuttings of his death were in an envelope on the next page, not on obvious display, the boy would be sad enough just knowing they were there and knowing how his father had been so cruelly taken.

She and Edward had talked a lot about what they would say to the boy in the future, and they had decided on one small lie.

Bella would tell Baby Jake she loved both men equally.

It seemed like the right thing to do, to never let him know she had always loved Edward more, and that way he would think her life had moved on naturally, and the romance between herself and her ex had revived, not never died.

It was a small thing but Bella wanted him to know how important Jake had been to her, always.

Edward placed the boy down on the beach and took the sleeping baby girl into his arms and walked up to lay her on the towel under the umbrella.

Baby Jake ran towards his mother and she opened her arms and scooped him up.

"You don't know how long I waited for you," she said, kissing his little face tenderly.

The End

**A/N I know some of you didn't want Bella to have Baby Jake but this was always the crux of the story for me. Cheers, thanks for reading, sorry it took so long to finish, Lynz**

"Two eggs had been fertilised by two different sperm in an occurrence called heteropaternal superfecundation.

The medical marvel can happen when a woman releases multiple eggs during ovulation and has more than one sexual partner within the same time period.

Ms W later admitted she had an affair that resulted in two babies, born at the same time, fathered by two different men.

The infidelity would have occurred within two days.

"Most people don't believe it can happen, but it can," Clear Diagnostics president Genny Thibodeaux said.

"I'm trying to let everybody else know," Ms W was quoted as saying.

"Don't put yourself in my shoes, because it can hurt and it does hurt, but you still have to go on with life," she said.

Ms W said she will tell the boys the whole story when they are old enough to understand."

**NOW go to Youtube and find Forevermore by Katie Herzig and all the chapter names are explained! I cheated, I used a song as my guide**

**www. y o u t u b e .com/watch?v=m8vgHCY2eUs&feature=related (get rid of the gaps)**


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